As many know I don’t generally censor comments on my blog. I generally welcome discourse and disagreement. To be quite honest, one of my long-term goals was to attract bloggers to the space that would disagree with me and give people things to think about.
So, with plenty of love, I’m going to share Steno Imperium’s “Digital Pay Parity A Pipe Dream of Unbalanced Benefit.” This relates to my post “Digital Pay Parity Would End The Shortage.”
“How can digital parity shift a system that thrives on mediocrity, not mastery?”
Because the simple truth is that most human beings are within relatively the same range of intelligence. The people we deride and derogate as low skill are, pound for pound, about as smart and resourceful as we are. By approaching the scenario as equals and challenging corporate power, we stand a much better shot at winning any given fight. Again, we’re expected to compete with each other. Competing with each other takes attention off how bad we’re being screwed by the corporate players. If we all turn around and demand, particularly through union contracts, that people are paid the same, the corporate players’ only option will be union busting.
“…the digital device will never emulate the essence of experience.”
I more or less acknowledge this where I talk about our communities making our people better trained.
“Day dances through his supposed ‘reality’ with a hasty hand…”
You bet I did. I learned long ago that shorter pieces get more attention. Any time I forget that, my readership levels drop.
“Digital’s rise, in truth, is but a product of a market manipulated by money, not merit.”
Precisely. They have the capability to outspend us 100 to 1. Probably 1000 to 1. And I’m being optimistic there. Those dollars shape perceptions. Those perceptions shape reality.
Consider our entire system of law. Two sides, presenting facts to a judge or jury whose perception alters the reality of the outcome for the two sides. If one side runs out of money, their facts may never even make it to a courtroom before they’re forced to settle.
Similarly here, we’ve proven, over many years, that we do not have the cohesion to mount an effective public perception campaign, while the digital sellers have been spending time and money on shaping public perception for over half a decade. We could, in theory, outspend digital. I’ve covered that on the blog before. We do not. We will not. Our so-called adversaries can break the law with impunity. It’s time to start considering the alternatives to losing.
“…the ‘reality’ Day speaks of is the same reality that leads to layoffs, loss of livelihood, and the lowing of laborers in long-standing lines of work.”
Exactly. I’ve openly published about the fact that corporate consolidation of the United States has started to threaten the livelihoods of doctors and the quality of patient care. If the nature of corporate consolidation is that more and more workers are subjected to the whims of fewer and fewer corporate executives over time, and this is true for some of the smartest people there are, then what’s going to save you from loss of livelihood? Banding together to put rules on the corporate executives! This can happen through legislation or unionization, but it must happen. Corporate power must be checked. Unchecked, the reality is, they do what they want to you, and you are an expense they’d really like to cut.
“Reality isn’t about corporate convenience, it’s about the craft’s value.”
I feel this is addressed by all the above. Yes, we’re valuable. But when you’re being outspent 1000 to 1 in the land of public perception, it doesn’t matter much. Let’s take AI, where the public perception spending is probably 1 million to 1. How many people have heard “AI is the future” versus how many people have read the studies Testifying While Black and Racial Disparities in Automated Speech Recognition? How many people have read that over 80% of AI business solutions fail? Even though those studies and that fact collectively clearly point to humans being better at transcribing a specific dialect, or being better at certain tasks, investors proceeded to dump billions dollars more on AI and AI companies. Perception changes reality.
Our craft ceases to exist without some money behind it. The people with the money think digital is the future. The Pygmalion Effect tells us they’ll do what they can to make digital the future. Their perception of what the future looks like must be altered for us to win out, and digital pay parity would alter it forever.
“The divide isn’t between positivity and anti-digital; the divide is between those who understand the value of real work and those who let digital devices dictate their worth.”
Let’s be clear. When I’m talking pay parity, I’m talking raising them up, not pushing us down.
I had to include the above portion in its entirety because I really take issue with it.
I’ve never made the claim corporations are victims. And again, our decentralization and lack of cohesion are a problem for us, not them. Digital pay parity is NOT a corporate strategy. Notice that it’s always been absent from the “unity” and “equality” corporate crowd’s vocabulary. It would not benefit the people on top, it would squeeze them. And damn, would it be nice for us to be doing the squeezing just once in my lifetime. I dare STAR to start featuring pushes for pay parity. I dare them. Unity Summit my ass.
The end is about being irreplaceable and about faith.
And in the end, I’m not here to shake anyone’s faith, but I can give you the science, the numbers, the psychology. If you want to choose “just believe in our skill” over all of that, it’s cool. But it’s not going to maximize the outcome for the largest number of stenographers possible. In my view, it’s about understanding all the systems we operate in and acknowledging that no matter how many of us believe in our skill, there are a lot of customers — lawyers, litigants, court systems, so forth, that do not care. They want a transcript and could not care less how it’s produced. In reality, cost might be their deciding factor. Want to give up all those dollars to digital? That is shortsighted. That will be the end of us. Equalize our pay and suddenly digital loses its demand. Game, set, match.
Re: “Equalize our pay and suddenly digital loses its demand. Game, set, match.”
Only if “equalize our pay” means the actual take-home pay to actual workers. Part of the problem is that for low-skill digital “reporters,” corporate takes a cut of their pay. So if corporate still wants a cut, digital reporting should cost more!
But even then, some of these big bosses will gladly pay more for a little while, if it means putting you out of a job in the long term. Worker solidarity is the only way to combat this.
This is a lot like public school teachers vs. charter school teachers. LA teachers are striking again. This time, charter school teachers are striking in solidarity. Since charter schools take lower-skill teachers with less experience and pay them less, charter school teachers and public school teachers could easily be enemies; charter schools are essentially a union-busting strategy — but when teachers work together, across charter and public in solidarity, they reclaim their power as workers.
Court reporting is experiencing the same thing that workers in every other sector are experiencing right now. The strategy of the bosses: deprofessionalize, “technology is inevitably coming for your job,” divide and conquer.
We need to cut through the noise, organize, build up workers, and demand fair pay for everyone doing the job. If they get us fighting each other; they win. But part of this is the admonition to charter school teachers and digital reporters alike: “demand fair pay; don’t be a scab.”
Agree.
On point.
https://stenoimperium.com/2025/05/06/a-gentle-a-straightforward-reply-to-christopher-days-response/?preview_id=3375&preview_nonce=845ed35b39&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=3379
We can either stand up for all workers, or watch the workers we don’t stand up for be recruited as scabs to replace our highly skilled work.
That doesn’t mean we don’t value the skills necessary to do the job well. It means we go to those underpaid workers tricked by unscrupulous bosses into attempting to do the job for cheap and say “here’s what you should be getting paid for doing this important work” and “here’s how to acquire the skills you need to do it well.”
Recruiting the scabs to the union doesn’t mean we lower our standards; it means we look out for workers.