Translators Associations North America: CWCIA
Fighting for the rights of Workers Compensation Interpreters
The California Workers Compensation Interpreters Association (CWCIA) is a translation association formed by a group of interpreters, as well as some interpreting and translation agencies, with the purpose of improving the professional and economic environment in which this regulated profession is practiced.
This translators association represents a profession that has been regulated by the State of California, thus it serves “statewide constituency”. CWCIA offers its members a kind of support that no individual (freelancers or translation companies) could afford to provide alone, “an expanding suite of professional and support services created specifically to address the continually changing issues before us and a voice with which to be heard”.
One of the organisation’s values is its “strong constituent voice” that will carry the message of all concerns of its members to the “entire workers’ compensation regulated community, other professionals and organisations alike who might share” CWCIA’s interests or concerns. Otherwise, the translation association’s voice can broadcast a strong and positive message to those who might seek to limit CWCIA’s ability to conduct their enterprises “professionally, honourably and without externally imposed operational or economic bias”.
CWCIA wants to establish a communications centre that will collect, evaluate and disseminate updated information on issues, developments, rules and proposed rules and / or legislation that might influence the future of the profession. To complete this task, the translators association aims at bringing outstanding Workers Compensation leaders together with members “in collegial settings”. The goal is to educate and inform at the same time as it provides a forum for questions and answers about the current major issues. CWCIA’s publications highlight these issues, giving them the widest possible exposure.
The Californian translation association is committed at a long range with its members in order to address major issues as they become known. In order to do so, CWCIA intends to educate target groups to these issues, “supporting the most favourable with the full weight of our resources, while focusing equal energy to combat the most onerous”. Through its members’ collective experience, the organisation wishes to find better solutions than those available to an individual interpreter. CWCIA is eager to seek substantial and sensible contributions to develop “a more balanced regulated environment”.
CWCIA’s newsletters, Facebook articles and forums provide open discussion within the interpreting community.
According to this Californian translators association, “for too long interpreters have been voiceless in an increasingly hostile professional environment”. Certain employers’ representatives constantly seek greater power to control (and abridge) costs of benefits for injured workers at the same time as other professionals in the workers’ compensation regulated community organise in associations whose purpose is “to address these incursions into the ability to practice their professions honourably and economically”.
All of these organisations – like translators associations – apparently continue to grow in membership and visibility. For CWCIA, that “is a clear indication that coming together for common cause in the face of adversity is working advantageously for their members”.
CWCIA claims that interpreters and translation agencies that provide work for them “have remained the only un-united and unrepresented regulated profession offering services to injured workers”. The people responsible for the association add that, as individuals, interpreters “have had to stand by voiceless”, as their “professional status and right to equal regulatory protection has come under regular assault by forces seeking economic advantage” at their expense.
In the history of CWCIA, several goals have been accomplished, such as the establishment of the John Allen Blakney Scholarship Fund to aid in furthering interpreters’ education, in 2009, or the first formal meeting of the Central California (Fresno) CWCIA chapter, with many attendees, in 2004. In the same year, the association managed to successfully change L.C. Section 4903.05 (the Alarcon Amendment to SB899) to exclude interpreters and copyists from the list of medical providers subject to lien filing fees.
As a member of the Californian translators association, you can benefit from all the resources which resulted from CWCIA’s effort. The organisation is committed to educate the general public to realise the differences between the realities of field interpreting and court interpreting. As “an organisation imbued with a collegial spirit”, CWCIA is looking forward to joining other organisations with the regulated community to make the whole workers’ compensation system operate more efficiently.
CWCIA believes that, through the synergy of its members’ numbers, it can provide better solutions and possibilities for situations, than those available to the single individual. The association works hard to protect its members from “forces seeking economic advantages at their expense by assaulting their right to professional and regulatory protection”. For the very same reason, it is believed that members of this union are necessarily stronger than those isolated on their islands.
Keep in mind that in California, as well as in the rest of the United States of America, English is the official language. It’s the most widely spread tongue worldwide, with around 328 million native English speakers (the actual figures are estimated to be much higher). The population of California is of over 37 million people.
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