The interpreters of the European Parliament - 259 staff members and more than 2,000 freelancers - began a strike movement at 2:00p.m. on Tuesday 5 June, which may seriously disrupt the work of the plenary session to start on Monday 11 June, if the dispute with Parliament's administration is not resolved by then.
The strike started with announcements, at the start and end of all parliamentary working sessions, to inform the MEPs and general public of the action. Up to the end of this week, the interpreters will not be working overtime. Texts and press releases will be distributed providing information about the action, which has no precedent in the entire history of Parliament.
From Monday 11 June, if there is no agreement with the administration, interpreting interruptions of up to two hours may disturb the work of the plenary session. The strike notice, which may be withdrawn, has the support of all European public service unions and has been served up to Friday 20 July.
The conflict is not a new one. Back in October 2017, the interpreters made their feelings known, but a first action was shelved due to a consultation carried out by the Secretary General of Parliament, Klaus Welle. However, a representative of the union SFIE-PE told EUROPE on Tuesday that “there is no such thing as social dialogue of the European Parliament”.
The interpreters consider that given the demands of the administration to increase their workload, their position is actually extremely conciliatory. They state that they are prepared to agree to extra hours in the booth, fewer interpreters in the booth, more working days, irregular breaks and to cover late meetings.
According to SFIE-PE, if the measures they propose were accepted, Parliament would save €2.8 million against an objective set by the administration of €2 million – even though Parliament's budgets committee has not called for savings to be made on interpreting.
“All they are interested in is production. They are purely economic criteria; but our profession never produces a return”, the union source said, questioning why Welle is so keen on making savings here and criticising the determination of Parliament to impose English as a lingua franca, in breach of the Treaty and the rights of the MEPs to express themselves in their mother tongues.
The interpreters will not withdraw their strike notice unless they are given satisfaction in writing. “We need a final text that has been approved by the Secretary General”, a second source said.
When contacted, the European Parliament administration spoke of its surprise at the notification of strike action when discussions are ongoing with the unions, and when a negotiation session is planned for the end of June. The administration states that the agreement with the unions provides for a period of five days for the notification of strike action and the invocation of exceptional circumstances.
For more information, see: https://bit.ly/2kQDF99 . (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)