This pisses me off. Translators are such a vital element of this war, and with out them, we would all be lost. Our lives depend on these folks, and all translators in Iraq have taken huge risks to perform their services. So why are we playing games like this? I hope their class action lawsuit tears GLS a new one, because you don’t mess with these folks.
On the flip side, all aspects of the contracting community has seen a downward trend in pay scale, but obviously this drop in pay was way over the top. We’ll see how it turns out. –Matt
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Mother Jones
Military Translators at War
By Bruce Falconer | Mon March 23, 2009 7:48 AM PST
The more than 2,000 Arab Americans currently working for the US military as contract linguists in Iraq are marked for death. Insurgents view them as traitors and, since 2003, at least 300 have been killed on the job. On the streets of Iraq, many don masks to shield their faces from hostile eyes. Their work is difficult and exhausting, but pays well—more than $200,000 a year for the most skilled positions. Or at least it did. Now some of these translators, who have seen their pay abruptly slashed by as much as 40 percent, are at war with Global Linguist Solutions (GLS), the government contractor that manages a $4.6 billion contract to provide interpreters for the US Army on behalf of an array of smaller subcontractors. The outcome of this fight could affect the US mission in Iraq.