https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/14/eu-border-agency-frontex-accused-exploiting-interpreters-pay
14 August 2022
EU border agency accused of exploiting
interpreters ‘paid under €2.50 an hour’
The EU border agency Frontex has been accused
of exploiting staff by using a contractor who it is claimed offers interpreters
an effective wage of less than €2.50 (£2.11) an hour.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency,
the EU’s best-funded agency with a budget of €754m, is being petitioned by
interpreters who work with vulnerable asylum seekers in places such as Greece,
Italy and the Canary Islands.
A
petition on the website Change.org claims Frontex “exploits their own staff”
and violates European standards on pay and working conditions, by using a
third-party contractor that offers low wages.
Mohammed Moctar, an interpreter and cultural
mediator who instigated the petition, said he had never been offered such low
pay in eight years of working for EU agencies, including Frontex. “This last
offer from SeproTec is the worst offer I ever received as an interpreter,” he
said, referring to the Madrid-headquartered company that recently won a
contract to provide interpreters to Frontex.
Moctar, who speaks 10 languages including
English, French, Italian, classical Arabic, Soninke and his Sango mother
tongue, said Frontex needed to take responsibility for the interpreters. “I am
speaking up, with the risk of not getting hired any more, but this matter
affects a lot of others who prefer to stay anonymous, because of fear of losing
their job or decreasing chances to find work,” he said.
In July Moctar was offered €1,800-2,000 a
month to work at an undetermined location in Spain for SeproTec, according to
an email seen by the Guardian. While on paper the pay is well above Spain’s
minimum wage, the interpreters point out they are expected to be available 24
hours a day, seven days a week.
“The salary that has been offered comes down
to less than €2.50 per hour, considering the 24/7 work week,” the petition
says. At least two other people were offered similar rates, according to
screenshots seen by the Guardian.
SeproTec rejected the
allegations as “flagrantly biased”, saying its salaries were between five and
eight times greater than what the petition said.
Interpreters can never be
more than a 30-minute distance from their work base and may have to work up to
12 hours at a time, often dealing with traumatised people who have endured
terrifying sea crossings.
Moctar was previously paid
more than twice as much by another agency working for Frontex, with a package
that included his accommodation and transport.
Not including these
benefits is unreasonable, argue the petitioners. Frontex interpreters are
deployed for a few months at a time to tourist hotspots where short-term
accommodation is expensive. “We request a reasonable salary per month plus the
expenses for accommodation, transportation and flights,” states the petition,
which had been signed by 182 people on 12 August.
One signatory, who said he
worked for Frontex for many years, via another contractor, said he was not
prepared to “compromise my skills in interpreting and culture mediating” for
low pay.
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The row comes months after
the departure of Frontex’s executive director after
an investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud agency, amid longstanding allegations
of collusion by Frontex in illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers.
Every year the border
agency draws on the skills of 80 interpreters and cultural mediators employed
through third-party contractors. It describes their work as “crucial for the
functioning of our operations”.
The Warsaw-based agency
said it valued the professionalism of interpreters and cultural mediators,
people who can understand dialects, accents, culture and customs of a region.
“They are present during interviews with migrants coming to Europe and greatly
facilitate the registration and identification procedures.”
The job can be stressful,
with a mental toll exacted from recounting traumatic stories in the first
person. “You can have an interview with a girl who said that ‘they raped me
when I was with my mum’, or ‘they raped my mother’; so you cannot interpret it
as like ‘the applicant says they raped my mother’, you will just interpret ‘my
mother’,” Moctar said. “I think for interpreters, this psychological pressure
makes you sad.”
After Moctar appealed to
the Frontex acting director, Aija Kalnaja, to “take immediate action, by
proposing acceptable working conditions and salaries”, the agency declined to
get involved, suggesting he contact Spanish labour market authorities.
In a letter to Moctar,
Frontex said it had no legal responsibility for staff employed by contractors,
noting these organisations were bound by EU and international law. “The
resources, including interpreters and cultural mediators which the contractor
provides for the purpose of the implementation of this [contract] are not
considered in any way Frontex statutory staff,” the agency said, quoting the
contract.
Responding to questions
from the Guardian, Frontex made a similar point, adding: “We have read the
petition from the interpreters and cultural mediators with great concern. We
would like to underline that Frontex does not accept unethical or illegal
working conditions.
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“We have contacted the
provider reminding them about their obligations and stressing that Frontex will
monitor the implementation of the contract and whether all the conditions for
the workers are respected.”
It added: “We have also
preserved the right to terminate the contract in case of irregularities, fraud
or breach of contractual obligations.”
A spokesperson for SeproTec
said: “We consider the information provided in the petition as flagrantly
biased [and] intentionally done to damage our brand.”
They claimed salaries were
“way above” what the petition stated: “The equivalent per hour would be at
least five times over the €2.50 mentioned in the petition and in some countries
up to eight times above.”
SeproTec added that its
records of service provided to Frontex showed cultural mediators worked on
average 32 hours per week, with less than 5% of the time outside normal working
hours. It said it paid allowances to fully or partially cover the cost of
accommodation in the “isolated cases” when it was necessary to move staff to
another country. “The company has a strict policy of compliance with the
applicable legal framework,” it added.
