Interpreters at San Francisco’s superior courts are staging a half-day walkout Friday morning, leaving some clients without language assistance amid stalled union negotiations.
The California Alliance of Legal Interpreters, the union representing staff interpreters in state courts across coastal Northern California, began negotiations with the courts in February of 2026, after their last contract expired in December 2025. But Daniel Navarro, an interpreter who works in San Francisco, said the negotiations have “hit a wall.”
“The courts have been giving lip service to language access for decades now, and we’re calling them out on it,” he said.
While the walkout is only happening in San Francisco’s courts, the union is demanding increased salaries and limitations on the use of remote interpretation across all twelve counties.
According to Mary Lou Aranguren, lead negotiator for the union, state court interpreters earn 35-47% less than interpreters employed by federal courts. All other state court employees — including clerks, officers, and court reporters — are paid on par with their counterparts in federal court, she said.
The number of full-time interpreters represented by the union has shrunk by 42% in the last nine years, Aranguren said, which she attributes to the low wages.
There are a total of 91 full-time court interpreters in the 12 counties represented by the union; in San Francisco’s criminal court there are 21, 16 of whom are certified for Spanish, and others certified in Hindi, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean, and Russian.
“We need trained interpreters for us to do our jobs,” said Jennie Stepanian, a private defense attorney. “We have so many Spanish-speaking clients that make up a significant population in our courthouse, and it’s vital that they have a fair trial.”
“There need to be more interpreters,” she said. “Not less.”
With so many interpreters leaving, the courts have begun relying more on contracted non-union interpreters who are often paid double the salary of full-time counterparts, but with no benefits.
In addition to in-person interpretation, courts have increasingly been holding sessions entirely online, with remote interpretation, since the start of the pandemic. But it’s “been done in a very ad-hoc way,” said Aranguren, using platforms “that are really not designed at all for interpreting.” Remote interpretation, she said, fails to consider the damage done to clients, who lose the ability to talk off-the-record with their attorneys, or to have their legal paperwork reviewed.
The interpreters’ union is demanding online interpretation be limited to “non-complex, non-evidentiary” hearings, and that interpreters be present in the courtroom whenever a client appears in person.
Alice Vojnik, a spokesperson for the superior courts involved in negotiations with the union, said the courts have proposed that the parties enter mediation, according to SFGATE.
This is not the first strike that has hit San Francisco’s superior courts this year. Court clerks organized their own strike at the Hall of Justice in February during union negotiations. The two-day pause threw the courts into disarray.
With interpreters on strike, it is expected that some non-English-speaking clients will have their cases pushed back.
This is a developing story and will be updated as we know more.
