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.
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.
“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.
