 Hello and welcome. This is Agnirka from AGT Masterclass and today with me I've got my dear friend and colleague, Dr Christian Nikolaj. Christian, welcome and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. Thank you for the invitation, it's a pleasure. The reason we're meeting today also one of the reasons is the recent survey after surveys on working conditions and visual translators in Europe is what I wanted to talk to you about today. Could you perhaps tell us what your goals were, what you wanted to achieve with this survey and why you actually did it. So I first did the survey for the Croatian market, which was a little bit different, because I'm no longer on the board of the association, but in Croatia, but they also needed the information, the association needed information, concrete numbers in order to enter negotiations with the Ministry of Culture and other stakeholders in order to better the working conditions in Croatia. And all these institutions, when you approach them, they need concrete information. So how much you're making, what your issues are, and we didn't know that. So to remember our AVT conferences, we always end up discussing fees and discussing working conditions, but we never actually had concrete information. And then after approached me after the Croatian survey and asked me if I wanted to, if I would be interested in working for them and conducting a Europe wide survey, which I accepted, but I also accepted to do it on the condition that I work with statistician. My colleague from the psychology department actually helped me and her colleague as well. So it wasn't just me, not at all, I was sort of leading the way, I hope. We launched it in June, it was last year, I'm lost in time a little bit. 2022 probably. 2022, yes, so we launched it in the summer. And then we. So, the statisticians actually analyze the data I presented the raw material not understanding everything myself at languages on the media in Berlin and then that we analyze a little bit more. And this report then was produced and released a couple weeks ago. Yeah, so we managed to gather quite a few people and nearly 2000 subtitles right from different countries. Yes, the distribution per country was sort of expected to a degree because if you compare the number of subtitles and the number of people in a particular country sort of corresponds to the size of the country not necessarily for instance Portugal is not that big. A country but still there were quite a few responses so obviously it's a large, very active community there lots of people working in AVT thank you Portugal again. So let's try to actually tell our viewers what the results are right you can you can look it up right it's available online it's a beautiful presentation point away with all the graphs coming up when you're opening. But what did you actually find when you, for instance, when it comes to the differences between the countries in terms of rates or working conditions. So we, I think, across the board, you can see that there is this issue of precarity of the job. So, even in countries such as for instance, France on some Scandinavian countries where workers rights are in general better than in other countries. You have this issue of subtitles, especially most of the respondents were subtitles. They can't really control their working hours at all. They can't control the quantity of work that they get. And also, they are not very often in most cases not paid for the extra tasks they have that are being asked to do for instance fixing translations once they have been finished because in the production process something was found out to be wrong and then the file need to be returned and then so a couple of hours a week devoted to that. Another thing I think what struck me the most is the level of education and the level of expertise that most people have, and the level of pay, because more almost two thirds are paid across the board again. The median or below the median wage of their country. Another thing that has become very transparent is that there is no difference between beginners and experienced of others in how much you are paid. And that's not good news, right? That's absolutely not good news and that's not a good motivation for remaining in the profession. Yeah, because the price for the minute right is the same whether you're inexperienced or whether you've been working for 20 years. Yes, and now in this situation. I don't remember this levels, this level of inflation since, I don't know 1980s when I was a kid. The price has actually dropped significantly. And at the same time, the companies or content owners haven't actually increased the pay. So essentially, you are, I don't know after 30 years of subtitling, you're experiencing a pay cut when everybody where everybody else is getting at least in some cases symbolic raise in some countries it set in law that your salaries indexed for inflation right this doesn't happen in audio visual translation. So the only thing which has also become transparent is that you can increase the volume of work in order to make up for it and that that leads to a whole set of other issues such as poor quality of translations and also your work life balance. So that has also become very clear. Another thing is that it seems that those stuff not the team, it's there in the data. Those subtitles audio visual translation translated in general who negotiate their rates, who are members of associations who work for more than one client have slightly better working conditions so at least that if you if your client base is wider, which of course demands. You need time you need energy to do that you also need a little bit of courage to do that. Yes, you will. You will then. Maybe have slightly better pay and also it's interesting. This is good news to those people who are just starting to work in the industry and may not realize that you can actually negotiate the rates right. You can absolutely negotiate the rates. Sometimes it's, I think it's difficult if you sort of as a student said yesterday stuff in silent. So if you don't communicate with your colleagues if you're not a member of association and you think that you have to accept everything you are said. Of course, it's quite difficult and you just, you are faced with a huge company that just sends you the rates and that this is it. I'm pretty convinced that if everybody said we are not working for these rates. Money would be found because. Yes, this is how things work as. It's good to get together essentially in association or something because otherwise you haven't got any contact with other subtitles. Yes, so that's also a message to beginners union so join your association as soon as possible so maybe I think some associations require at least a year of experience but as soon as you can join the association and negotiate.