On a typical day, Spanish interpreter Rudy Calderon might drive from his home in Durham to the Dare County Courthouse in the Outer Banks and back. The same week, he could be in the mountains in Hendersonville, and then Brunswick County in the southeast later—driving three to four hours to work each day, he said.
As a contracted interpreter for the court system, Calderon is only paid for the hours he works and gets half-time for hours in the car, incentivizing him to pick up cases across the state. Because work in court sometimes can last less than a few hours, it can be challenging to make up an entire workday without the hours spent in the car. “It makes no sense to work in your county of residence,” he said.
In a push for higher pay, Calderon and contracted interpreters across the state are canceling some of their cases as part of a phased work stoppage, organized by The North Carolina Interpreter Advocacy Committee.
The current rate for certified interpreters contracted by the state court system, who are paid per assignment and operate as freelancers, is $45 per hour. Interpreters with the highest level of certification are paid $55 per hour.
The advocacy committee is requesting a pay increase from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) that is comparable to surrounding states: South Carolina will increase pay for its certified interpreters from $65 to $75 per hour on October 1, and Virginia pays $80. It would be their third pay increase in about two decades.
“This disparity of compensation now is glaring, and it’s going to cause interpreters in North Carolina, who are certified court interpreters, to easily travel over state lines,” said court interpreter Sarah Arredondo, who helped found the advocacy committee alongside Calderon.
Interpreters translate proceedings in court, in addition to out-of-court meetings for state appointed attorneys and public defenders to speak with victims and witnesses. Arredondo estimated that, statewide, there are about 40 active Spanish-speaking contract interpreters on contract with the AOC, with the majority participating in the boycott.
The interpreter advocacy committee informed the AOC’s Office of Language Access Services (OLAS) of the upcoming boycott on July 13. On July 28, OLAS sent an email to its staff to inform them that the AOC had sought additional funding from the General Assembly over the past several budget cycles to increase pay, but that the most recent budget did not include funding for raises.
The phased work stoppage only involves contracted interpreters. A handful of counties, including Durham and Wake, also have staff interpreters who work full-time in the districts they are assigned. Without the help of contractors, staff interpreters have bigger caseloads, and many counties solely rely on contractors.
The protest began July 31 with the contractors fully stopping all work for the day, and in an internal email from July 28 obtained by the INDY, OLAS estimated that 34 cases across the state would be affected by the work stoppage. In the following two weeks, contractors boycotted only Superior Court trials across the state, targeting those because Superior Court judges have more influence among lawmakers, Arredondo said. Fifteen Superior Court trials across the state would be affected, per OLAS’ July 28 email.
In the next phase contractors either canceled or did not pick up cases in the nine counties with staff interpreters. On Monday, the contractors fully stopped all work across the state again. Starting Tuesday, the contractors will boycott all Superior Court assignments—including hearings, pleas, and motions, in addition to the trials.
“People are going to be sitting in jail because they can’t get their case heard,” Arredondo said. “So this creates a problem with constitutional rights, due process, and speedy trial and effective assistance of counsel and all of those things—so it’s not going to look good.”
The affected cases would then require a staff interpreter from another district to come in, or virtual interpreting, OLAS wrote in the email.
But Arredondo said staff interpreters are already overextended. For example, there is one staff interpreter for Orange, Chatham, and Alamance counties. In addition to regular interpreting duties, they have administrative duties in the courthouse, such as scheduling interpreters for other languages when there are requests.
“They are constantly pulled in many directions and have to bounce from courtroom to courtroom, and so that’s what they can do, and it will create stress in the short term for them, and extra stress,” Arredondo said. “But at the same time, I feel that they support what we’re doing.”
The staff interpreter in Durham County—where traffic court proceeded uninterrupted on Monday—declined an interview. In response to a request for an interview about the impact of the boycott and how the AOC is responding to the interpreters’ requests, the AOC wrote in an email to the INDY: “The Judicial Branch has scheduling policies in place to ensure language access needs are met across the court system through in-person, telephone, and remote video interpretation.”
Interpreting virtually or over the phone is hardly an equal substitute, interpreters told the INDY. Arredondo called it a “band-aid,” as there can be a long wait to get an interpreter on the line, and then sometimes the audio is insufficient and messages could be translated incorrectly.
Pay for contract interpreters most recently increased by $5 in 2022, when interpreters first organized to push for higher pay. Prior to that, pay had not increased since it was set at $40 per hour in 2007.
Because contractors get paid half their hourly rate for the time spent in the car, driving across the state for assignments is how they pay their bills. Court interpreter Josiah Melendez, who helped found the advocacy committee, lives in Johnston County and will take cases across the state, as long as he can get back before dark.
Melendez said he’s clocked 36,000 miles in a year driving to and from courthouses across the state. The AOC upped the mileage reimbursement rate to 72 cents per mile, announced in an email on Monday. This is an increase from 67 cents per mile, which is still below the Internal Revenue Service’s rate of 76 cents.
During the pandemic when court operations were cut back or canceled, Melendez drove for DoorDash to sustain himself, because he doesn’t get benefits or sick leave as a contract interpreter. He said he feels the state is not valuing the interpreters’ skills for what the market has determined they are worth, considering he has learned legal terminology in two languages and works to maintain his vocabulary.
“I’ve had attorneys call me, panicking, begging, and saying they would be willing to pay me whatever they want, whatever I asked for me to show up in court in order for them to litigate their cases,” Melendez said. (As an AOC contractor, Melendez can’t be hired by another client to work in North Carolina courts).
He said court interpretation is an essential service, protecting people’s constitutional rights to equal access to the court system regardless of their background.
“I would love to be able to provide that service to anyone and everyone who needs it, but at the end of the day, I am a business, and I have to protect my bottom line because that business is what provides for my basic needs,” Melendez said.
The boycott of Superior Court assignments and staff interpreter districts continues, and Arredondo said the advocacy committee is planning for a full day work stoppage once per month as long as their requests are unmet. Contract renewals are due at the end of September, Arredondo said, and she and her colleagues will have to determine if they plan to continue their contracts with the state.
Comment on this story at [email protected].
