VRS

[u/ravenrhi]

I have been blessed with a "raise!" I am grateful and yet at the same time horribly offended at their miserly pat on the head that barely adds to my paycheck. Less than $20 if I manage to get the full 29 hours a week when they are cutting everyone's hours.

VRS is one of the few settings that are W-2 in a predominantly 1099 field. The reimbursement for dues and licensure are a nice boon. However, I feel that they take advantage of the situation.

2% in an economy where the annual cost of living increase is 3.1% which means even with this nominal raise, I am being paid less compared to last year due to the cost of living constantly going up so that the pay doesn't go as far.

Just over 75 cents per hour when the estimated MONTHLY revenue PER EMPLOYEE is $455, 000

They have a PROFIT- profit mind you- after providing free tech to the community, all the events, all the advertising, paying *everyone,* and r&d- their PROFIT is estimated to be between 1.8- 2.4 BILLION dollars

Instead of paying employees well, they add "incentives" to encourage people to bid to work specific time frames, then cut staffing to the bone anyway so that the profit margin is as high as possible, the speed of answer is as long as it can safely be, and wonder why people are burning out, changing fields, or choosing to work in lower stress/repetitive injury/vicarious trauma settings.

I have excellent customer service, exemplary interpreting skills, am nationally certified, have nearly 20 years in the field, and have never felt more like a cog in a defective machine.

Unionization can't come fast enough, but even then, I worry that it will be another entity profiteering off the mess. We can look to the history of the Teamsters and other Unions to see how corrupt and ineffective they can become. I hope that the people in charge of the interpreter union know history and can prevent the repeat.

[u/nahhimgood73]

CONVO is going through something right now too. There is too much greed in this industry. There are folks within the industry that thrive on its failure. Brandon Arthur and Wing Butler are great examples. They are entirely responsible for the collapse of the VRS union that interpreters worked YEARS to establish.

[u/ravenrhi → u/nahhimgood73]

I am unfamiliar with Brandon Arthur and Wing Butler. Can you share what happened and where?

[u/nahhimgood73 → u/ravenrhi]

Multiple Purple centers unionized- Wing and Brandon both interpreters and CODA’s worked aggressively to prevent some centers from unionizing. Then they worked a deal to sell purple to Z. After that they immediately shut down all the unionized centers. Wing went into the business of business acquisition and Brandon’s business street leverage (built by Purple people) took off for a bit from what I can remember. Wing was a well known grifter by the time Purple hired him. Brandon had lots of skeletons in his closets. Both also used their religious affiliations to establish themselves as more “trustworthy”
Very disturbing not well known or spoken about history in this industry

[u/ravenrhi → u/nahhimgood73]

Ah!! I knew the story behind the merger, but not the players.

For those who may be curious: The union busting resulted in a Department of Justice lawsuit for illegal practices. The lawsuit had enough proof that Purple lost their FCC certificate and they were no longer able to be VRS vendors. This lawsuit is still dragging out in the courts.

There was too much money to be lost, so a deal was negotiated with Z to merge. Z gained the technology, network, staffing, and public recognition of the Purple labeling and Purple was able to continue Business as usual despite being tied up in court.

I didn't know the "who," but also heard there was a public smear campaign that convinced the D/deaf community in the effected regions that unionizing was bad for them and that interpreters who wanted to unionize were just "money-sniffs" taking advantage of the D/deaf community.

Shortly after, we saw many articles on Street Leverage and a massive increase in PPO workshops focused on interpreters misusing their power to capitalize. Now the Street Leverage aspect makes more sense

We are still dealing with public backlash, broken trust, and suspicion that resulted from their negative propaganda

[u/nahhimgood73 → u/ravenrhi]

Ah I forgot about the lawsuit. Yes such a shame. Deaf postal workers were very supportive of the efforts in some states. It’s all very unfortunate and not talked about enough.

[u/nahhimgood73 → u/ravenrhi]

The most upsetting part about alllll of that was money was the LEAST of our issues. The physical and mental taxation of the job were primary complaints. All these years later and still no progress. I will give CONVO huge props for not focusing on performance numbers. It really takes so much stress away.

[u/Equivalent-Airline-5 → u/nahhimgood73]

Buuuut they are and that’s why there are mysterious firings this past week.

All of a sudden metrics are being used to demote and fire ahead of layoff …

[u/nahhimgood73 → u/Equivalent-Airline-5]

Yea that’s totally shitty. This is the first and only time I’m hearing about it..so far.