Language interpreters for Washington state’s labor agency sued last year alleging they were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in missed payments. 

More than a year later, they say the issue still hasn’t been resolved. 

When they filed suit, the interpreters for the state Department of Labor and Industries alleged they were owed more than 3,500 payments, ranging from $6 to $494, totaling $280,000, dating back to 2021. The unpaid work continues to “pile up” for language access providers, according to a spokesperson for their union, Interpreters United.

Specifically, these interpreters serve those injured while working for an employer that is self-insured and does not participate in Washington’s workers’ compensation system. Such companies must pay for medical services, including interpretation assistance, needed after workplace injuries.

Self-insurance allows the employers, including companies like Walmart, Costco and Tyson as well as some local school districts, to exert more control over workers’ compensation claims. 

The Department of Labor and Industries still manages the claims. It contracts with an outside company to handle the scheduling and paying of interpreters for self-insured claims. Until June 2024, that company was InterpretingWorks, which is named as a defendant in the ongoing wage theft lawsuit. Last year, L&I switched to SOS International, or SOSi.

Self-insured employers are required to compensate the interpreters through the outside company that acts as a middleman. The union is pushing Labor and Industries to pressure those firms to pay up.

“L&I has the authority and obligation to require self-insured companies to pay the compensation owed to LAPs, but has failed, refused, and neglected to do so,” reads last year’s lawsuit filed in Thurston County Superior Court.

Labor and Industries spokesperson Matt Ross said the agency has “the same goal as the interpreters: We want to see them get paid what they are owed.”

Some interpreters don’t want to work with the agency any more.

“I used to do a lot of interpreting for injured workers for L&I, but stopped doing it for over a year now,” union president Quan Tran said in a statement. 

Barbara Robertson, a Swahili interpreter, said it’s “utterly ironic that the agency that investigates and litigates wage theft does not guarantee that interpreters will be paid.”

“Frankly, I’m not inclined to interpret again for a client whose insurer hasn’t paid me,” she said.

Ross, from L&I, said in an email, “We’re working hard to find a resolution for those cases” where interpreters haven’t been paid.

The agency’s new vendor, SOS International, has also contracted with the federal government to provide interpreters for immigration court proceedings. In 2017, the National Labor Relations Board found SOSi had misclassified those interpreters as independent contractors, enabling the Virginia-based company to avoid giving them benefits like overtime pay.

A SOSi spokesperson said the company is “committed to ensuring we meet our obligations to pay interpreters in accordance with the terms of our contract with the State.” The company wasn’t named as a defendant in last year’s lawsuit.

Ross said since changing vendors interpreters are being paid on time.

“The number of interpreters providing services for workers has also more than doubled, from 254 last June to 520 today,” he said Aug. 13.

InterpretingWorks CEO Marisa Gillio said if interpreters didn’t get paid, “neither did we.”

“Even after our contract ended over a year ago, we’ve continued processing invoices and ensuring interpreters are paid as soon as the funds come in,” Gillio said in a statement.

The contract interpreters for Labor and Industries had long fought for union representation. Last year, they secured their first contract with the state. It provides a 5% pay increase in the current two-year state budget. The union represents about 1,400 interpreters who work with state government, including L&I and other agencies, said spokesperson Patrick Sugrue.

This story is republished from the Washington State Standard, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet that provides original reporting, analysis and commentary on Washington state government and politics.