A long time ago I made the Court Reporter Rates Discussion group on Facebook. Anyone can join and we do a bit of group policing to keep the spam low.
For years this wasn’t a thing. Our associations trained us we couldn’t discuss rates because we are independent contractors. And in recent years there have even been a few people who have made the claim what I am facilitating is illegal.
There are two reasons why I’m basically immune to any sort of prosecution in this regard, as best I can tell.
First of all, for the FTC to go after me, they risk bringing to light that they didn’t go after the consortium of businesses that conspired to raise prices under the Speech-to-Text Institute. They’d be arguing Christopher Day is more of a threat to the monopolization of the market than Veritext et al.
Second of all, the indisputable legal truth is that the vast majority of us are misclassified employees with an absolute right to discuss our pay and working conditions. Again, this is something companies would never come after me for, because it would blow up in their face. Imagine a judge confirming what I am saying for all of you.
There are digital court reporters figuring this out and talking about unionization. Change is coming. It may take a decade or more or it could be next year. But we each have a decision to make — lead the charge or watch the battle and hope the winner is benevolent.
Coincidentally it’s the same way fascism has been fought through history.