Bulletin: New York Freelancers Must Have A Contract

Long have independent contractors in New York City largely operated with no contract in place.

A contract is required. Court reporters are not exempt. The law becomes effective on August 24, 2024.

As told by the link I posted:

A summary of what is required in New York freelance contracts

A contract outlines all your rights and obligations under a business agreement, so if there’s something you want, make sure it’s in the contract or not excluded by the contract.

Enjoy your day, all.

P.S.

Enjoy one of my favorite fictional scenes.

Stenonymous posts the V for Vendetta Dominos Fall scene, which Christopher Day takes some inspiration from.

Creative musing:

Inside our box I trembled. We have such a rigid culture. Could others accept someone who is different? But others felt that way too.

And when we stuck together, others in our box took notice. And when we struck a nerve, they did their best not to flinch.

But do you let go of the crocodile’s mouth? If it opens, will our box be crushed? I shudder. The art of silencing others was never in my heart. But I saw how the crocodile silenced you.

I leapt from our box to protect you. Outside our box my grip grew weaker, but you stood beside me.

It’s a big box. But now the thoughts are free.

Now we are free.

February 2024 NYC Deposition Reporter Unionization Report

In my “Chaotic Good” post I floated the idea of unionization for “freelancers.” I also provided a form that people could sign up if they were interested in the idea, which I urge my fellow New Yorkers to share and sign on for.

After my post, someone I love very much urged me to seek guidance from a lawyer on this issue. If you want your name here, just let me know.

Another court reporter insisted that my “Chaotic Good” post was filled with supposition and put together by hope and duct tape. I have now spoken to a lawyer whose life mission is worker organization. Let’s just say my supposition, hope, and duct tape is more like the concrete foundation on which we build a better tomorrow for you and your families. Take it or leave it.

As it turns out, much of what I wrote in the aforementioned post is true. As told to me by the attorney:

There are many factors balanced or viewed by a fact finder when deciding if someone is an independent contractor or misclassified employee. What the parties call the relationship does not matter. So, for example, Lexitas’s Independent Contractor Agreement means jack shit. I wonder who could have predicted that.
There are two tracks reporters could take to push the issue. The first would be some kind of class action that could be pushed all the way to the Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court. The second would be finding enough reporters from a specific New York City office and filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
No matter what track is selected, the organizing workers would have to decide whether to form a new organization or form under an existing organization. It is probably better to go with an established union.
Misclassification class action track. This option would take years and quite a lot of money in legal fees. Given the facts I expressed to the attorney, he commented that the misclassification route would probably be better.
NLRB track. This option would be quicker and is more attractive in that sense. In the event of an NLRB petition, the employer will likely say that the petitioners are independent contractors and not employees. the NLRB will hold a hearing to decide the issue. The NLRB is more favorable to workers than many courts, including New York’s courts. The company being unionized may attempt to withhold work from the petitioners, but if it’s found that petitioners are employees (and there are good reasons to believe they would), such action would be illegal union busting, and those retaliated against could be compensated for it. The NLRB track would require dedicated campaigners. This would be smarter to do at a smaller agency first, because it requires a majority of workers at the agency.
Digital court reporters and voice writers. Where agencies use a mix of court reporters, it would make sense to unionize all together. After unionization, a contract could be put in place that sets ratios of reporters, and that contract would have to be followed by law.
Contracts generally. Anything that can be put inside an enforceable contract is fair game. So, again, the right to work from home and refuse jobs, some kind of system could be put in place to allow for that. Many of the “benefits” court reporters enjoy from being “freelancers” can be secured contractually. The lawyer noted something like “it sounds like you are all getting all the drawbacks of being an independent contractor with none of the benefits.” Meaning we take on the self-employment taxes and so forth, but we have little to no customer control or independent branding, and are generally not allowed to subcontract our jobs to others as we would be if we were true independent contractors.
This will take a lot of perseverance no matter what. It may also take a lot of time. Organizers and campaigners must be ready for a fight.

I want to stop and pick on point 6 a little, because court reporters are probably like “no, no, no, no, no.” Let me give you reality. Veritext has been advertising for digital court reporters every day for years. The larger companies of our field are, without any doubt whatsoever, slowly siphoning us out for digital court reporters. If you do have any doubts about this, feel free to reach out to Jackie Mentecky and ask her how things are going in Florida. To summarize: Stenographers cannot get work and are having trouble affording their bills because digital court reporters are being sent on the jobs they would have had. I have personally corresponded with people that are having trouble paying their bills because of agency mistreatment. So if you do nothing, you will be replaced. And even if you are not replaced, the constant influx of court reporters from both our stenographic recruitment drive and Veritext’s cash-dump strategy will create a worker glut that will reduce or freeze your rates. To understand why this is, you have to look at supply and demand. Demand for court reporters is forecasted to pretty much remain the same, with 3% job growth currently forecasted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So if the demand is remaining the same, and the supply is going up, eventually our gentle shortage will become a deluge of workers who will all be competing to get the same jobs. This is why New York City is 30 years behind inflation. And that was with stenographers competing with each other, not with a combined workforce.

And if stenographers do not do this, then digital court reporters might do it after our numbers thin out a little more. Who do you think gets to set the ratio if that happens?

Special note to the rest of the country: What’s happening in New York City and Florida is just an accelerated version of what’s coming for you. I know you don’t like to read that, but this is the nature of corporate consolidation of the country. MEDICAL DOCTORS are having difficulty and pay disparity is causing massive worker shortages in pretty much every field. How long do you think your licenses are going to protect you? They barely do now.

I am taking steps to obtain records from the defunct Federation of Shorthand. If obtained, they will likely be shared with the lawyer, and may be shared with this audience. If anyone would like to assist me in this endeavor, please reach out to contact@stenonymous.com. It seems that either we will need to pay for reproduction of the records OR visit in person at 70 Washington Square South.

Real talk. I got mine. You can look my salary up online. I don’t need to help you. I don’t need to care about you. I don’t need to spend time writing blogs or publishing information for you. I didn’t need to save your job from the Speech-to-Text Institute propaganda machine. I didn’t need to make a forum where you could discuss rates freely. You can spend your days whining on Facebook about how the agency won’t pay your rates or you can unionize and lock them into a contract where they have to pay your rates from now until the end of time.

On one end, you have a guy who uses a considerable amount of his free time to help people he’ll never know. On the other end, you have corporations that are factually doing everything they can to create market conditions that reduce your income. I don’t think this is a difficult decision, but I’ve been wrong before.

The Speech-to-Text Institute is an organization that was accused of fraud and illegal anticompetitive conduct, was subsequently sued, and shut down its website in 2023.

Conclusion

Unionization for New York City deposition reporters is possible but will require action on the part of court reporters. You can use me as a shield to organize by filling out that form I linked at the top.

ADD-ONS

A union is not the only course of action that can be taken. We can also push for a New York City or New York State price transparency bill where companies would be required to tell court reporters what the consumer is being billed and tell the consumer what the court reporter is being paid. A second option, suggested by another lawyer, is creating something of a cooperative agency that competes directly with the big box brigade. All of these options are preferable to doing nothing. All of these options require organization, so quite frankly, if you’re interested in 1/3, you should still sign up on my link.

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.” -George Orwell

Beware Commercial Leasing Agreements for Equipment

Commercial leasing, by itself, is not a scam. The idea behind commercial equipment leasing is that you are leasing or renting computer or electronic equipment from a company for a specified time. Some agreements then contain provisions for you to buy the equipment or return it to the company you are leasing from. That said, contract law is pretty serious in the United States and you will generally be expected to abide by the terms of the contract that you sign with a provider or seller if a matter goes to court. This means you have to be absolutely sure you want to be a part of the agreement you’re signing.

Why beware? A few simple reasons:

Complexity. The likelihood that you need a company to help you pick out equipment is low, and the cost of computer equipment for court reporting is low enough that you can probably figure out a way to buy the equipment outright or cheaper using revolving or personal credit. It does not make sense to have a complex contractual agreement for equipment unless there is something generous you are getting from the contract such as generous tech support provisions, replacement parts, or free repairs/replacements. If you can walk into a store and get it, caveat emptor. If you are entering an agreement for someone else to get it for you, be just as careful.
Third-party bait and switch. Some sellers will say they are helping you pick out the right equipment for you. This can be very tempting because not everyone in our field is comfortable buying computers without advice. So you could be talking to your software manufacturer, who refers you to their “computer specialists,” who are actually a third-party commercial leasing company. So one minute you’re talking about buying a computer, the next minute you’re signing a commercial leasing agreement, and if you’re not careful, your signature could end up on an agreement that you don’t fully understand. This is totally legitimate, legal business, but it could cost a reporter a lot of money unnecessarily.
Predatory practices. Beyond the third-party bait and switch, there are general equipment leasing “tricks” that can end up costing consumers. Evergreen clauses are one example of this, where the buyer has the option to buy the equipment, but the seller is allowed to extend the agreement if the buyer does not notify them of their intent to buy the equipment. There are also instances where sellers attempt to alter the text of the contract just before it is signed. If you see a company employing predatory practices or attempting to confuse you, it may be a good idea to avoid doing business with them altogether.

Protect yourself and your wallet. Always make sure you read, understand, and retain a copy of what you sign or agree to. If you are having trouble understanding the terms of a contract, it may pay to have a lawyer review the contract with you, because monthly payments, fees, or penalties in an agreement can quickly snowball to be several times the cost of the computer equipment you’re leasing — and it’s mostly legal.

Pricing Pages In A Market of Fear

We’ve had fairly extensive discussion in the past about page rates and pricing. We have basic math tables showing a rough guesstimate of the amount of work that goes into making your “goal salary.” We have had posts on supply and demand when demand was high. We’ve talked about attempting to price in risk. We’ve also had heavy discussions on the economic principle of inflation, and that, succinctly, rates must go up periodically to keep any job or field healthy. All of these things kind of coalesce into my opinions on our field’s prognosis. With the coronavirus outbreak, the field has seen a sharp drop in demand. Depositions just aren’t going through for so many of our colleagues across the nation. There are many of us scared to death about keeping business afloat, and so it seems a good time to talk about the flip side of supply & demand.

Right now many states are in lockdown status. People aren’t supposed to be going out, and even those who are, essential employees, are at serious risk. The demand for depositions isn’t there. This may have the impact of causing prices to dip. Gas prices are going down in some areas. Restaurants are offering specials. Some essential employees, generally underpaid for the valuable work that they do, are receiving raises to ensure they turn up to work. In their case, their essential labor is in high demand. We are not immune to the supply and demand principle. Many of us will feel the pressure to offer discounts, offer specials, basically offer to do the same work for fewer dollars. People need to eat. People need to feed their families. There’s really no shame in partaking in whatever tactic we need to partake in to get our clients to buy into taking deps over Live Litigation, Zoom, or whatever our preferred platform. Even before the outbreak, it was not uncommon to hear of “first dep free,” or “X off of Y deps,” type of deals. It’s a business starter and foot in the door for entrepreneurs and companies hungry for work.

The important thing is to try to be forward thinking. Check local courts. For example, here in New York, Lawrence Marks encouraged parties to postpone proceedings for not more than 90 days from 3/20/20. What does that tell our New Yorkers? If we’re going to do a special or contract, it probably shouldn’t lock us in for more than 90 days because demand can be reasonably anticipated to rise around that time. We have to remain on top of the market and keep an eye on civil court news to try to feel out when demand will spike back up again. At that point, when the calls are coming in again, it’s appropriate for our rates to go back to what they were pre-outbreak. Many of us are introverts or individuals with no special business training. It is very easy to convince a group like that that they are low value, replaceable, and so on. That’s not true. And in fact, many of us need help with confidence, communication, and leadership to help us in our business pursuits. That’s why we have vendors out there like TALLsmall, Katen Consulting, and Outfluence. There’s never a good time to stop relaying just how valuable we actually are.

It is true that this is an emotionally stressful time. Just like with stock trading, we will feel pressure to make decisions that may not benefit us in the long run. It’s okay to be emotional. This is a scary and unprecedented moment in history. But when it comes to our livelihoods, it’s worth distancing ourselves from those emotions, sitting down with the latest press release from the local court, and trying to determine about when we can expect things to bounce back in a state so that we can make arrangements with creditors, clients, utility companies; keep the bills paid, and our credit intact. People are hurting. This is a time for spreading solutions and ideas without shame and without shaming. From big picture economic articles like this one, to smaller nuanced technical solutions, everybody has something to bring to this table of survivors and steno stars.

Contracting with Public Entities: Diamond’s 2010 Renewal With City

I had written a recent article about competing for contracts, and in that article, I got into a pretty detailed description about how to access public records. Succinctly, I believe that the more we talk about how to compete, and the more we facilitate an environment where people feel they can compete, the more competition we will see. This competition has a decent chance at spilling over into the most important competition of all: Attracting talent.

Ultimately, market share allows companies to have more power in negotiations with their reporters. If reporters feel empowered to seek work elsewhere, or even grab some market share for themselves, there’ll be more of a push to treat people well and attract reporters who are in it for the long haul. So if you have not read my article on inflation or accessing public records, I suggest you do just for the knowledge and experience.

That all said, I’m going to get into why I’m writing today. This has become a place for information to be given out. This has become a place for people to spread ideas. This has become a place for me to post a little piece of history. In or around 2010, Diamond had renewed its contract with the City of New York, the Law Department, or Corporation Counsel, and sometime later, I got a copy of that renewal. I also, at around the same point in history, was doing research on other companies’ public contracts, though I do not have them to post today.

To be blunt, per my interpretation, in 2010: The appearance fee was set at $26, the regular Law Department delivery was $3.65 per page, $5.20 per page for a rush, $5.75 per page for an overnight, $78 for a bust fee, $5.20 for a disk or CD ROM of the transcript, $5.20 for a compressed transcript, $5.20 for an electronic transcript, $5.75 per page for realtime and regular delivery, $7.30 per page for realtime and rush delivery, $7.80 per page for realtime and overnight delivery, $1.60 per page of rough draft, $78 for obtaining clearance to a prison, $130 fee for appearing at a prison, $21 for a multi-file disk.

Plugged into an inflation calculator, these 2010 dollars would be worth the following in November 2018: Appearance fee, $30. Regular Law Department delivery $4.21 per page, $6.00 per page for a rush, $6.63 per page for an overnight, $90 bust fee, $6 for a disk or CD ROM, $6 for a compressed transcript, $6 for an electronic transcript. $6.63 per page for realtime and regular delivery, $8.42 per page for realtime and rush delivery, $9 per page for realtime and overnight delivery, $1.85 per page of rough draft, $90 for obtaining clearance to a prison, $150 fee for appearing at a prison, $24.33 for a multi-file disk.

To be clear: This is ostensibly a contract for a large amount of work. This says nothing of what could be charged in copy sales to private plaintiff attorneys. Remember that there is no limit on what may be charged by a company on copy sale. Some reporters that get sent on contracts lose companies money, and that’s compensated for from the reporters that do not know to ask for more. Take an interest in your business, getting clients, and staying stable.

Recently I was informed that Diamond may have increased its rates to attract talent. This is an important development, and if true, wonderful news, a great move, and definitely something that reporters should consider in their negotiations and in how they coach student reporters.

If you like this sort of public information spread, feel free to donate today, or donate copies of public information. Helps cover simple costs related to domain hosting and potentially upgrading this blog, and creates incentive to write similar articles.