Public Service Opinions February 2026

Staten Island the morning after the February 23, 2026 blizzard

There’s a weird split in the way people think about public sector work. I’ve noted that those that are familiar with the work involved in any particular agency tend to acknowledge it where they can. I certainly do. Apart from court reporters, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know just how hard all sorts of people that come through the courtroom work. I have great respect for the people I work with and work for.

I have no illusions about how some people see us, though. Overpaid ingrates living off the hard work and toil of the private sector.

I’m reminded of that this morning.

Christopher Day says more private sector people should unionize

Maybe therein lies the answer. Maybe public sector workers should use our free speech protections to encourage private sector people to unionize. As unionized private sector working conditions improve, it becomes more commonplace for working conditions to improve across the board, and we can all ask for the things we need.

Tax revenues would probably go up too. More money in more hands means more opportunities, no? Look at me, I had a little money in my hands and first thing I did was employ people. Multiply that by a few million New Yorkers. Yes, some people are tax cheats, but that’s inherent to the system as it is.

All I know is you have some really smart people out there who are restrained by the lack of resources the birth lottery granted them. Gotta get more money in their hands somehow. And the American right to unionize, and discuss pay and working conditions, is the legal structure to get them there on a systemic level.

And some folks view union as anti-market, but it’s all part of the market. Our labor is like all goods and services, and we have a legal right to push for more profit. This is, again, something the wealthy seem to inherently understand, as throughout my lifetime since the Citizens United ruling, there have been forces at play exerting control over our federal government, sometimes legally, sometimes not. And to the extreme detriment of working people and the poor. And the mega corporations that own our news do what they can to avoid coverage or slant coverage.

FDR saved capitalism with the New Deal almost 100 years ago. But we don’t necessarily have to wait for a great man to save us. We already know that a high concentration of the U.S. economy is in corporations. By some estimates, 20% more than they had in the 1930s. And we already have a legal vehicle with which to demand more of our corporations — the union.

Put it this way.

What could you do with 20% more?

Jackie Mentecky: It’s Deception. It’s A Bait and Switch…

(CDA stands for Christopher Day Annotation in this text.)

“We need antitrust monopoly. We need an employment lawyer.”

Cheri Marks speaks to FL stenographer Jackie Mentecky

ME: Where are you from and are you currently working as a stenographer? And how did you get started in that field?

JM: I’m originally from England, but I grew up in the states, I lived in Pittsburgh for a long time. I moved down to Florida 28 years ago, and I’ve been reporting for since 1998. My entire career has been in Florida.

ME: How has the work been going recently? And can you tell me about when and how you started working with the reporters in Florida?

JM: I’ve always worked for the big boxes, but it was more recently I started asking myself, ‘what’s going on with our career?’ And I started nose diving and down rabbit holes, pulling up lawsuits, pulling up billing. And it was when I saw the writing on the wall that I decided to open my own agency.

ME: Could you give me some examples of things you were finding, what the bad practices entailed? I’m also curious where you seek out news, sources and information about abuses in the field of stenography. Is there good communication within the field?

JM: I can tell you this. Going into a job, attorneys were very vocal in asking, ‘why is my bill so high? What is going on?” And I would talk to my girlfriends, and again– more and more attorneys are complaining about their invoices. I’m like, ‘sir, I haven’t seen a bill since 2006. I don’t know what they’re billing you’.

We never got a copy of the bill. We never knew what they were billing. Attorneys, law firms, whatever it was, everything was kept in the dark, hush hush. Nothing. Nothing. We used to get copies of the bills that went out to the law firms–

ME: The bills were coming from who?

JM: The big boxes. So we used to get copies of the bills when they invoiced their clients, but then they stopped. Looking back, that’s kind of when things started going south.

Everything was hidden behind a back door, don’t ask questions, you know? And it was very, you could sense it. You knew it. You would bring it up once in a while, but, God, you were so busy! You just kept working, right? We were busy. You knew something wasn’t right, but you think, well, I’m still making good money, so leave it alone.

ME: Don’t make waves.

JM: And then you’d forget about it, until somebody else would bring it up..

JM: About six years ago, my son started having really bad seizures. And I stopped going out on live jobs, so I was working from home. I was working for a big box, already either appearing by phone or transcribing audios, before it was even cool.

So the first year of COVID I ended up going back to one of the big boxes because Zoom was now popular. It was a lot easier for me to go back to being a stenographer that was doing hearings and trials and depositions. We were having, oh, gosh, two, three jobs a day during COVID when people finally learned how to use Zoom, and we were slammed. Like, even if you tried to get a day off, they were blowing up our phones:

“Open job”, “do this”, “we need that”, “we need help”, “help. I understand you’re off tomorrow, but can you please take this job?”

I mean, we were slammed. And then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t so slammed anymore.

But attorneys were like, oh, my God. We’re still on backlog, we’re busy, busy, busy, busy. We gotta go to trial. And the court stenographers were saying, ‘what’s going on?’ Our two jobs a day are now, if we’re lucky we got two or three a week.

So, what is going on?

Covid was the perfect opportunity for these firms to do this to us, because we weren’t in the office together. We weren’t seeing each other all the time. Everybody was working by zoom now. So this was their big chance to cry ‘shortage’ and hire digitals, get them trained, and then try to get rid of the court stenographers. For them to say, we’re too slow, and then come to find out that they have digital reporters in Texas taking Florida work.

I started doing some research. I knew something was up. I knew that this had got to be over profits. I mean, they’re paying these typists $20 an hour. I did legal transcription for over 20 years at a big box firm. I know what AI software they’re using, and how much they’re paying their typist, everything.

Because that’s what it is. They get these digital court reporters, they’re paying them $20 an hour, but they’re still billing the law firms as if a professional stenographer showed up. And then they bless them with this title, ‘court reporter’.

ME: No way!

JM: It’s deception. It’s bait and switch, you know? You hear ‘court reporter’, you’re thinking, court stenographer. And there’s someone sitting there with a machine just pressing ‘record’. And then they input it into a system.

ME: Geez. Is there a Stenography Union?

JM: Well, Florida’s not big on unions. We have the Florida Court Reporters Association. And I always thought it was funny that the big box companies always had people on the board, right? The same people that have tried to strip us of our profession were on the board making decisions on whether we should get legislation to protect our careers. Weird, right?

ME: Yeah.

JM: And it’s so funny because they were all on the FCRA, and they would be big sponsors for conventions and stuff. Then Covid comes and they’re no longer doing that. They’re part of the AAERT, which is the electronic 8th-grade-comparable test to become a court reporter.

(CDA: In full disclosure, I’ve actually read AAERT’s best practices manual, and I believe if best practices were followed all the time, decent transcripts could be made. Best practices are not followed all the time and some of the transcripts I’ve seen over the years have been atrocious. But I suppose that’s not entirely unlike our own field, where some of us do not join into the “excellence culture.”)

ME: Wow.

JM: They were on the board, but they’ve been playing this for years. Covid was the best thing that ever happened to them.

ME: Right. Do you feel like there’s potential for individual court reporters to unionize as a way to push back against this? I don’t know If there’s much conversation between states, or if you’ve done any kind of organizing?

JM: Well, it’s still getting out. At all the agencies, all the managers would always tell us, ‘your job’s protected. We wouldn’t be an agency without the court stenographers’. But behind our backs, they were training digitals. I don’t know how much you know about Veritext, but they buy out to small agencies. They have a school to pump out digitals.

(CDA: BlueLedge.)

ME: Wow.

JM: And then especially, with Zoom, they’re able to get away with using a digital, and they’re billing clients as if a professional stenographer showed up.

I don’t know how New York does it, but down in Florida, we have an appearance rate, which is just us showing up, as an hourly rate. So, I’ll give you an example of a trial. For a court reporter to show up, let’s just say $1,100 for the day. The court reporting agencies would pay the court stenographer anywhere between 65% to 70%. So you’re looking at, you know, $650-700

So they made, like, you know, what, 400, $500 up, sending the court stenographer there.

‘Shortage. Shortage. Let’s send it digital!’. And we’re gonna pay the digital $20 an hour to hit ‘record’.

And then when I started doing the deep dives and the rabbit holes, and I’m seeing how much they’re telling us ($5 a page), versus how much they’re charging them, ($60!) I was going into courthouses and looking up lawsuits. Agencies were suing attorneys for non-payment, and they have to attach the bills– they’re charging them for litigation packages and storage fees and reads. And, you know, this poor court reporter probably only made a third of that bill.

So when I came across Chris and https://stenonymous.com/ I reached out to him. But a lot of the reporters just didn’t believe us.

ME: Really?

JM: Because the agencies kept saying, oh, no, your job is secure. They didn’t want to believe it. It’s denial. I’ve talked to Chris a couple of times. We should really unionize and try to get this going, but it’s also true that the perpetrators have a lot of money.

(CDA: I have spoken to an attorney and have extensive knowledge on this. Unionization, especially unionization alongside digitals with contractual ratios would change the game forever in our favor.)

ME: Yeah.

JM: And they have big dollar investors, millions and millions and millions of dollars. And if you even type ‘court reporter’ into Google search, all you see are the big box names. They bought up so much advertising.

You have to sort through so much to really find out really what’s going on. Though, the law firms are beginning to become educated. They’re like, what do you mean, ‘there’s a digital’? What’s a ‘digital’? They don’t know. The companies think the law firms don’t care, but they do care.

(CDA: Some care, some don’t.)

ME: Maybe if there were some kind of team effort between the stenographers and the law offices? Maybe my next interview should be with a lawyer, to see what their take on this is…

What’s the state of your work now?

JM: Well, now I’m busy. I’m making more money now than I ever have. But I hustle and I work for a couple small firms that take good care of me, and I have my own clients.

I keep telling every single court reporter, leave the big boxes. Go back to the boutiques, they have great clients. In that way, I’m doing well. But it makes me angry when I find out my friends aren’t busy. I’m like, you’re a real time reporter. How are you not paying your rent?

ME: Have you thought of starting a class action lawsuit or anything?

JM: I mean, they monopolized our market.

I started going on LinkedIn, and I started following some of the big law firms and other court stenographers, and I started posting the truth about what’s going on. And it was shocking, to find out how many lawyers did not know that a digital reporter doesn’t actually type the transcript or ever look at it, that they just make the audio.

They tell the lawyers, ‘this is a digital court reporter who’s making a recording, it’s transcribed by stenographic means’. But it’s not!

They don’t tell them that it’s going through AI. They don’t tell them that if it’s a 100 page transcript. There could be five typists that go through it. That’s why it’s all messed up.

I’ve consulted with a few lawyers in a small court reporting agency. She called me and said that she needed a stenographer. She had called to the big boxes, and they’d said, oh, yeah, we have a stenographer. Well, they end up sending a digital. And it was expedited. It was an all day export. And when they got the transcript back– 150 pages were duplicated!

ME: Oh, my God.

JM: And the transcript was trash. She called me up, and I explained to her exactly what happened. And what to say to the big box agency that did it, and what to say to the judge.

And they won!

So, I think we need to educate the lawyers about what’s really happening with the digitals and what the agencies are doing with their audios– how they’re being charged to expedite. They’re getting charged $16 a page, but they’re paying somebody $2 to do it. And then saying, ‘it’s because there’s a shortage, and we were trying to save money’.

So, when a court reporter shows up, in Florida, they don’t have to order. They can say, I don’t need that yet, so they don’t order it. But if they order it, that’s where the money is. But it depends how many attorneys are there. So usually it’s like two attorneys, plaintiff and defense.

But you could have two attorneys or you could have ten attorneys. You can see on the notice how many parties are on a lawsuit.

So when a court reporting agency goes, ‘Oh, look at this lawsuit. There’s one plaintiff and five defendants. That’s six copy sales right there. Yeah, let’s send the digital– because we’re gonna make a ton off the per diem. We only have to pay somebody $2 a page to do the audio and fill in the gaps’ (which are wrong, by the way).

And then they have five copy sales. And in Florida, a copy sale can range anywhere between $4-6. Up to $30 to 100 page transcript. That’s 100% profit margin to them. If there was a court stenographer, a real professional court stenographer that showed up, it’d be 70% of the entire amount that went to the court stenographer.

ME:Yeah.

JM: Digital is 100% profit margin. It’s not a shortage. It’s corporate greed, and profit margins.

ME: Totally.

JM: And then, once again, they don’t even tell the lawyers.

ME: It’s like, they’re taking advantage of this complex exchange. They’re exploiting it for profit. And it’s subtle.

JM: Yea. I want to say it was 2017 that Veritext, US Legal, and Esquire all got bought out by private equity firms. Like, within three months, all the big boxes got bought out. And it was so weird, too, that I was also finding newspaper articles and stories stating there’s a shortage of court stenographers.

(CDA: My memory differs here. I believe at least Veritext was already owned by private equity. It may have changed hands around that time period though. I have no memory of the status of U.S. Legal Support or Esquire.)

Isn’t that weird? All these articles started popping up, right when all these biggest private equity firms were buying up the big box companies for millions and millions and millions of dollars. Why would a private equity firm buy a company when they were crying shortage?

(CDA: I remember this being more like 2019 when all the articles were popping up. But it hardly matters. It was happening.)

And then I found Veritext’s patent, their big AI software and recording devices, and that the plan was to just get rid of stenographers altogether.

It went through during COVID last year, and I posted it. And I thought, is it just me, or does it seem like Veritext is really trying to make us all quit?

They’re really rude to us on the phone. They’re starving us. And then the work that we do get, it’s paltry, and there’s no write ups. It’s like they’re purposely giving us the jobs that they know aren’t going to write up, and we’re just getting a bad per diem.

And then, we started talking on Facebook, posting stuff. And then people were like, yeah, me too. And I’d preciously had stenographers reaching out to me at Facebook, I would take overflow for them. I would call them and ask, what’s going on? And they’d say ‘We’re fully staffed. We don’t need you anymore’.

We need antitrust monopoly. We need an employment contract lawyer.

ME: Yes.

JM: Because in 2011, Veritext, US legal, and Esquire all got sued. There was a class action. Did you know about this in Florida?

ME: No.

JM: There was a class action lawsuit because attorneys were very upset that the word indices at the end of their [transcripts]. They were getting charged per page, like it was a regular transcript from the court reporter.

And the word index is all at the end of the transcript. If you said the word ‘the’ 100 times, it’ll tell you every time in that transcript where you said the word, ‘the’.

So, you know, it could be a hundred page transcript, but it could be a 30 page word index. And they were getting charged page rates, and they were fighting it. So they filed a class action lawsuit saying this is unethical. This isn’t part of the transcripts, it’s not part of the record.

And they ended up losing.

ME: What?!

JM: Because the court reporting agencies went in, and they said, this word index is part of the court reporters word product. It’s part of the transcript.

(CDA: In actuality, it’s more like tying a product under the antitrust laws. You can, and court reporters absolutely do, create transcripts without word indices.)

And that’s how they lost. Now, it’s funny because when that lawsuit came out, it’s running rampant in the office. We were all hearing about it. But, the court reporting agencies were like, don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about the clients. It’s an ongoing litigation. And then we just never heard about it again.

ME: Right.

JM: So when I started doing my deep dives and I was trying to find out what’s going on and what are the real rates, I happened to ask my friend, ‘whatever happened with that?’

ME: That lawsuit?

JM: Yeah. So I googled it, and I read the order when it was dismissed, and I was like, oh, my God. It got dismissed because they’re saying it’s part of our work product. It’s part of our official transcript. And she was like, wow. So why aren’t they paying us for it?

We have never gotten one penny for a word index. Yeah. I think somebody owes us a lot of money.

ME: Yeah!

JM: So, I was just finding out so much. So I called a lawyer. And I asked, was this dismissed because they were saying the word index is part of the court reporter’s work product? And he said yes. And when I told we never got paid for that, he said are you serious? I almost had a heart attack.

ME: Wow

JM: What a mess. Yeah. It’s so shady. I do believe there’s handholding. I do believe these agencies are in it. There’s no doubt. I believe there’s handholding because the AAERT, the two biggest big boxes are on the Association’s membership boards.

I mean, come on.

ME: What are your next moves? What are your hopes for the future of this community and for communications across the board?

JM: Definitely to get more information out. I think what’s going to save us is educating the lawyers. They need to know that if they want to protect their record, they need to have a stenographer.

ME: Yeah.

JM: If they’re gonna go with the digital, then you get what you pay for. When you’re paying for a professional, you should demand a professional.

ME: Yeah.

JM: You know? It’s very overwhelming. Chris and I were sending stuff back and forth all the time. I got very busy with work. I’m hoping we can get back on it. I would love to get a Florida court stenographer association up, and a campaign to educate the law firms and lawyers and really just bring everything to light.

ME: That sounds like a good path forward.

JM: Here’s my favorite example: this is from a trial transcript and appeal transcript out of Broward county, which is in Fort Lauderdale.

I live 20 minutes north of there. And the guy was charged with “lewd and lascivious molestation”.

The digital transcript says he was guilty of “ruining the gas”. The city’s gas station.

The transcript is on my LinkedIn page.

ME: Oh my god, so wild. Okay, I’m gonna end your interview with that amazing quote. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

JM: Bye.

ASSCR Senior Court Reporter Escapes Fire with Child, Union Organizes Support Drive

When I saw ASSCR Union President Eric Allen post a Go Fund Me, I knew I was about to see something serious.

New York State Unified Court System Senior Court Reporter Stefanie Johnson and her son escaped a fire and a collection is being held for them in their time of need.

This is my union. It’s a serious situation. I understand that not all court reporters have a big disposable income, but for those of you that do, please consider contributing today. Any amount helps.

In the words Eric Allen to contributors, “…it is people like you that bring some sunshine to people in their time of need.”

You too.

Thank you.

—————

P.S.

Stefanie, if ever you should read this post, it was created to attempt to bring more funding to your recovery and not an attempt to sensationalize your loss. It can be taken down at any time you choose. Just reach out at ChristopherDay227@gmail.com or ask Eric to reach out.

Bulletin: r/court_reporting Joins Reddit & Unionization Plan Posted to Industry Times of New York!

This app ate the draft I made about r/court_reporting! Technology is crazy.

r/court_reporting now joins r/courtreporting and r/stenography as places where machine shorthand writers can ~~be chronically online~~ talk to each other anonymously through Reddit. Made by a not-me court reporter, for court reporters, it’s worth joining the discussion today!

In other news, we already have a couple of pledges and a couple hundred eyes on the post about New York City unionization from yesterday. Word about the idea has been posted to the Industry Times of New York.

I gotta say though, alternative publications like mine thrive off word-of-mouth spread from readers like you. If anyone out there would like to share the Industry Times press release or my post from yesterday, I’d be eternally grateful, even if you share it under the guise of an insult about me so that the agencies don’t catch on. I had the privilege of very briefly speaking with two figureheads from the then-defunct Federation of Shorthand over the years. I got the sense that one of the reasons it didn’t work out was it was hard to reach people. It’s still hard to reach people. But now the internet is so ubiquitous that word can travel faster and farther than was imaginable in the whole history of mankind. Surely, if we can get some shares, we can reach more people than those reporters of the past were able to.

And, you know, like I said yesterday, once this gets rolling it becomes a model that is theoretically reproducible in other states. I’ve already had a reporter reach out about the terrible treatment they’ve received in another state, the pain of doing the “freelance” thing with disabilities, and the hope that the unionization model will take off and protect new reporters.

For anyone that’s doing great in this field, I know you don’t want to let negativity into your bubble. I was the same way. But the purpose of acknowledging these negative situations is to progress toward positive solutions.

Let me remind everybody that the paragons of silence and ignorance that instinctively cling to their failing traditions are the ones that brought us to a place where we have very little institutional support, a falling median wage, and the public perception that this profession cannot meet the demands of a modern world. Yet we persist, insistent on assisting each other through a time of rapid change and artificial upheaval of our previously unchallenged prevalence. We must listen to the stories of struggle, lest we see a cascading failure and consequent erasure of our principles and paradigm.

Now say that 5x fast.

The “Chaotic Good” of Court Reporting

I’m suspending most internet ops broadcasting the court reporter shortage fraud. It was a good year. My publications reached tens of thousands. Yet I can’t help but feel my energy is better spent elsewhere. I’m hopeful that, in time, the community comes to understand why I chose this method of telling the story and this iteration of the Stenonymous character. But I have to face certain realities. We’re in a period in history where companies can call fraud free speech and claim that the government should be barred from pursuing lies that have gone on for a long time. There are probably millions of scandals like ours or worse than ours, and not enough journalists in this country to cover even a healthy fraction of them.

As the multimillion dollar corporations let the one-year statute of limitations on defamation pass, I hope people start to question a bit. I was willing to put in print allegations of consumer fraud & name names in my own name without the privilege of anonymity. I retract nothing. This stuff will be searchable online pretty much forever. There’s certainly a cost to me. But what are consumers to think about a firm that can’t even do the bare minimum brand defense of dropping a comment to say “these allegations are false?”

I’ll still work on the community publicizing and publishing. I’ve got ideas. You’ve got ideas. Let’s put them in print!

First up, NYC “Freelancers,” if you’re interested in unionization, leave a contact email here. What I’ll do is I’ll collect these “pledges,” and at the point where we have a hundred or so we could pool money on real legal advice for implementing a deposition reporter union. My proposal would be to secure a contract that works out some kind of points system for refusing work and pay structure to stay by the page as we’ve always known it. Basic idea is that most of you wouldn’t be able to talk about this out of fear of blacklisting, so we use me as a go-between until the group is large enough to do what has to be done. Could take years, but let’s face it, I might be around another 30 years, so I’ve got time.

If you’re totally lost, let’s just say there are good arguments to be made that many of us meet the definition of common law employees, either commission-based or per diem. That means a whole heap of us are misclassified employees. That means that whatever you’re making now, there’s a good chance you could work out a better deal via collective bargaining. Similar to the concept of bulk buying power. Very pro-capitalism. All about charging what the market will bear. Bonus points if we get contractual provisions for the use of digital reporting, like a stenographer-to-digital ratio, which would guarantee, with the force of law behind it, that companies cannot just replace stenographers willy nilly.

And before somebody jumps in with “my skills earn me the top of the top, I don’t need no union, nope,” it’s cool, really. I get it. Some of you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I would think I’m a nut too. But then you meet reporters who are like “my agency doesn’t want to give me more than $3.25 in 2022 during a time of unprecedented shortage,” when everyone and their mom knows some reporters were getting $3.25 in 1990, and you start to realize that maybe something is not quite right here.

I was never quite able to verify the truth, but I was told by another reporter that one of the killers of the Federation of Shorthand was Diamond Reporting. “You don’t need a union, we’ll pay you your rates.” How poetic if that’s true. That was the company that said no copy sales for New York “freelancers” prior to the Veritext takeover. That was the company that was paying many of you $3.25, a 1990 rate, in 2010. So I sure don’t know if they helped kill the union, but I know for a fact that they capitalized big time on its death. Great anecdote for how companies will actively push for things that hurt your wallet. And something you should keep in mind the next time someone is insisting that you don’t need a union, often using their age and presumed “wiseness” to give weight to halfhearted reasons for why something that’s not really been tried won’t work. “Ah yes, here was a thing so ineffective that companies campaigned against it, sued it, and did everything in their power to bring it down.” In reality, the knowledge that we are underpaid came from historical documents left behind by that union. How twisted is that? It defends us even in death. Sounds like a fantasy novel.

Imagine holding in your hand a tool that, on average, raises your pay, and that you have evidence that it raised pay for people that came before you. You look at the tool, snarl up your face, and go “I don’t like this tool because I feel like the work I do with my bare hands is more fulfilling!” You throw away the tool. The people that would’ve had to pay you more cheer and tell you what a good, hard worker you are, and everyone is happy. Especially you, the hard worker. This is pretty much what I envision every time someone gives me an anti-union excuse, and I have heard pretty much all of them:

“The top reporters get the top pay and jobs!” Not true. There was a certain point in my career where I was the second-most qualified of about a half dozen friends and making the least money — and we’re talking up to 25% less. One agency wouldn’t work with me because I wasn’t in the field long enough at the time. But they worked with someone I knew who just so happened to have less time in the field than I did. I later went on to place 14th in the state’s court reporter civil service exam. Most of us want to believe in meritocracy. I saw for myself things are anything but.

“The harder you work, the more your reward.” Nope. I busted my ass as a 20-something running around New York City. Yeah, I work hard. Pretty much everybody in this city works hard. But you know what? I work a whole lot less hard and make a whole lot more money than I ever did. And I know for a fact there are people out there busting their ass harder than I ever will that make less money than I do. So hard work doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it either. I can self-justify and say my hard work then is what laid the foundation for my success now, but it’s just not true. I gained no professional advantage from being underpaid. Saying otherwise would be delusional self-aggrandizement. I reject telling 20-somethings that hard work is the deciding factor in success. It is one of many.

“Unions are corrupt.” Oh, conceded, some are. Bad leadership can make union membership unbearable. Unthinkable. But in the end you have to decide whether it is better to reform the institution that is supposed to be protecting you, and that you can sue if it fails in its duty of equal representation, or do away with it completely. Think about it this way. The threat is that eventually the person paying you will come swinging the (1d20) axe of “I just need to lower your pay or adversely affect your working conditions.” Could be any reason. Maybe they just want to move their cousin into your seat. Would you prefer no shield or a busted shield that you have some time to fix up and make work for you if that threat comes your way?

“Unions only protect bad employees!” Bad management protects bad employees. Unions typically set up a disciplinary procedure. Managers typically don’t want to follow that disciplinary procedure. The result is non-performers get to endlessly offload their responsibilities on performers while the union takes the blame for “protecting bad employees.” And at the end of the day, this is a great deal for management, because if you get frustrated and dissolve your union because it only protects bad employees, management now has no impediment to firing any of you for any reason whenever they want. Any of you ever had the work from your agency mysteriously dry up after you did something minor to displease them? We could make that never happen again.

“Unions are only for people that benefit from the lowest common denominator.” I’ve taken classes in and done a lot of reading on unionization. You don’t have to structure a union where everyone gets paid the same. You can create tiers, or points, or basically anything you can dream up, put into words, and get people to agree to. Funny that the people that think they’re so far above everyone else can’t imagine improving the models of the past.

“Unions don’t do anything!” Unions are a legal vehicle that, through legal and/or social pressure, encapsulate the terms and conditions of employment in a contract and defend the interests of its members. If there’s something more that you want it to do, you put it into words, you run it by union leadership, and if you don’t like the response you get from leadership, you band together with more union members to push the change or even vote union leadership out. Put it this way, if you do not care enough about your idea to do that stuff, can you really blame leadership for not doing it? It’s like when people get upset with me for not covering every topic. I’m one guy and the community won’t fund me enough to hire help. My effectiveness is limited by the support I get. So too are your union leaders. (Corporate leaders too, but money buys a lot of support, as it turns out.)

In a rare, perhaps unforgivable moment, I’m going to betray my union a bit and put in print that there’s a faction that has an issue it wants addressed. There’s been plenty of haranguing and handwringing over it, but there hasn’t been a single serious attempt by the faction to address the issue. I’ve had hours of my time wasted listening to people talk about an issue that they don’t care enough about to formally address in any substantial manner and gotten a front row seat to the “unions don’t do anything” people complaining about matters they’ll lift not a finger to solve. But, who knows, maybe one of them reads the blog and will ask me how I’d handle it if I wanted them to win. Point is that initiative drives outcomes. If you have no initiative, your outcome is decided by people that do.

“Union dues are a drain on your wallet!” I guess? But it’s been shown that on average unionized workers make more than their non-union counterparts, even factoring in union dues. Specifically in our field, we can study non-union deposition reporters with unionized officials, and we can see that, even going 20 years without a substantial change, the page rates are still higher than private sector rates on average. Meanwhile attorneys say their bills have never been higher. Where is all that extra money going if not to you? The agencies. What do you think would’ve been more of a drain on your wallet, union dues, or literally and demonstrably all of the price increases from 1990 to now going directly to the corporate owner’s pocket? We have this funny habit of considering union dues “our money,” and price increases the “employer’s money,” but y’know, if your “employer” is raising prices and never giving you a raise, you’re effectively paying dues to your employer for the privilege of working for them. You just don’t get to see those dues come out of your paycheck, so it feels much better and you don’t have the urge to complain or do anything about it.

“If it was possible someone would’ve done it already to collect all those union dues!” Someone I genuinely love — in fact, one of the people that saved my career — loves this line. And it cuts me deep every time because I’ll never really know if they’ve fooled themselves into accepting this fallacy as truth or if they know damn well it’s a fallacy and choose to publish anti-union rhetoric again and again anyway. I’m too chicken to ask and I don’t even know if the answer I’d get would be the truth. Sad day for me.

Why is it a fallacy? Union structures, in my lived experience, are less about expanding the power and profitability of the union and more about safeguarding and managing what they have already. It would genuinely surprise me if, at any point in the last 50 years, any of the New York City unions seriously considered a campaign to bring the deposition reporters into the fold. It would surprise me if they even conceived that such a thing might be possible. To make the connection or assertion you’d have to read the highlights of various labor laws and apply them to the way the job is done in modern times. And even then, you’ll probably still get a patchwork of realities where some people would qualify and some would not.

There’s also the potential political cost of current union members taking offense and deciding to vote out a leader that spends too much time on such a campaign, even if it would ultimately strengthen the union. Add the fact that you would likely have to modify union constitutions to support and allow it. So it’s not a matter of “if there was money in it, they would do it.” It’s a matter of looking at all the obstacles and saying “yeah, this isn’t my fight, and my union doesn’t pay me more money to fight it, so good luck with that.” But if it happened in reverse, where a large group of “freelancers” established a union, or deposition reporters unionized several agencies and then asked to be folded in under —- whoever, let’s say the legal support workers union — I think the results would be quite different. That’s just assuming they’d want the protection of a larger, more-established entity.

“Skilled jobs don’t need a union.” The iron workers, carpenters, and all manner of construction people seem pretty skilled to me. And I just told you there’s a legal services staff association, LSSA 2320, and they represent paralegals, social workers, and others. ASSCR, Local 1070, and several CSEA branches represent court reporters. The whole skilled/unskilled thing feels like a rumor that got started to keep workers divided. And it works really well. We squabble with each other about why Joe burger flipper shouldn’t make $xx.xx per hour while the people paying us get away with murder against everyone right up to and including some of the most educated people out there.

All this is to say that the road ahead is difficult. But if we do not even try, then we’re just going to continue this game where the corporations reduce stenographer positions in favor of digital, get them to fight each other for the work, causing even more of a rates freeze (or effective drop). Then this’ll force more people out of the market, particularly the smart ones that don’t want to work for peanuts. And ultimately the pool of stenographers from which the courts recruit will fall to a place of no return, leaving the private sector to pick up the pieces via recording and transcribing. Game, set, match. That’s competition, baby, and it’s on a level that most of us in the “accuracy and ethics” crowd don’t think about. It’s time to flip the script and win the competition.

So let’s take a crack at it. Leave your contact info. Best case scenario, we do something historic and create a model that leaders in every state can follow, as well as upping your paycheck and giving you more worker rights than you currently enjoy. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work out and everyone has a big laugh at my expense.

If you’re tired of being underpaid during a time of “unprecedented” shortage, it’s time to take a stand!

Addendum:

Even doctors are unionizing due to the corporate consolidation of America. I’m willing to put down at least $1,000 to help all of you with the legal fees.

There’s also the “unfortunate” truth that if we make an active effort to do this, agencies might raise rates just to avoid having to deal with a union for the rest of their existence.

1/11/24 update:

Court Reporters, the Department of Labor’s New Interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act Classification Clause Probably Means You’re An Employee.

Union Leader of the Year: Eric Allen

I’ve been a union worker for about 8 years. For a nice chunk of that, I’ve been an ASSCR member. Our president is Eric Allen. He’s testified before our New York State Legislature (1 hr 31 mins) . He’s made our worth known to the people in power. The other officers serving with him are excellent. It’s really special to be a part of such a union.

Unfortunately, it would be inappropriate for me to spread most union business over Stenonymous. But I want to say this after witnessing an 8/15/23 meeting: I see a union committed to transparency and understanding. A democratic organization where all of us have a voice. Thank you for all you do, Eric. I know the profession is better because of you, the people working with you, and those that emulate you. As easy as leaders like you make it seem, we know it is not easy.

To any students out there, unionization saved my life. I doubled my income thanks to being in a union. Eric and the union were there for me during a tough time in my life. If you ever get the opportunity to speak to Eric, reach out and take it, because it is a real privilege.

Eric Allen, President of the Association of Supreme Court Reporters

Court Reporters Speak Up For The Record On Future Trials

The New York State Unified Court System commissioned the Future Trials Working Group to look at many possibilities for use of technology in the courtroom. In April 2021, the Future Trials Working Group released a report with recommendations for the court system. On page 13 of that report, there was a section regarding the possibility of automatic transcription, and specifically automatic trial transcription.

The report had a strange view on the possibility of automatic transcription. In one area, it noted “the most foreseeable endgame in the evolution of trial transcription likely is full automation.” In another part just down the page, it stated there were “…obstacles to the use of such technology on a fully automated or even predominantly automated basis for the foreseeable future”, going on to note “…automated transcription — at least at its current stage — could threaten access to justice if widely employed.” The most foreseeable endgame is automatic, but in the foreseeable future, the technology is unreliable. This is, in my view, a strange view to take. The report goes on to recommend that the court system study outside vendor offerings for automated/remote transcription or translation.

Court reporters and the people that represent them did not sit in silence. A response was prepared by the New York State Court Reporters Association and the Association of Surrogate’s and Supreme Court Reporters. Several unions supported the response, and the full letter and list of supporting unions can be read below. My personal favorite quote? “…use of automated speech technology for trial transcripts, by all available information, would not threaten access to justice, it would implode it.” We have, as a profession, put our foot down and said “we are here to guard the record, we have been guarding the record for over a century, and we will do all we can to educate the system on why other technologies are inadequate.” State and national association membership has never been more important. Union membership has never been more important. When you contribute to these organizations, you give them strength to advocate for you.

In full disclosure, I did contribute to the letter. But without the work of ASSCR President Eric Allen and NYSCRA President Joshua Edwards, this would not have been possible. Again, it all points to the importance of association and union membership. Members empower leaders. Leaders fight for an advocate on the behalf of members. It’s a symbiotic relationship that, if you are not currently a part of, you certainly want to be.

Addendum:

A response was received by the court system and is featured below.

Thank you Eric Allen and Joshua Edwards.

Workers Rights

Here on Stenonymous we have explored many different things related to freelancing and stenographic employment. As a quick recap for those that have trouble navigating the site, we’ve discussed turnaround times and how they have gone from 30 days to 5 with no extra money involved. We’ve discussed the Beginner’s Trap and freelance loyalty, which is all about how you must be loyal to yourself to earn a better income. We’ve brought out the need to build skills that make you marketable. We have admitted the power of a contract and thought about what should go into a rate sheet. We’ve gotten into billing, antic o ntracting, form SS8, and what it means to be an independent contractor. We have explained why we can’t discuss rates, and then we have discussed rates. We even put out other people’s rates.

Now it’s time for something a little different. I would like people to seriously consider a dilemma the field finds itself in. As independent contractors, we are consistently in a bind of being afraid to discuss rates thanks to antitrust concerns. This fear is probably at times a little overblown, but it causes us to be silent and to act very content even when things are not going well. Indeed, our biggest organizations, our NCRAs and NYSCRAs are trapped in the position of being unable to serve as forums for rate discussions due to liability concerns. All this is happening while some of our biggest purchasers are making a push from stenographic reporting to digital recording. I think it is time to ask ourselves what we actually get out of the independent contractor label. It’s out there that employers can save up to 30 percent by labeling employees as independent contractors. It’s out there that about 20 percent of employees are misclassified. Succinctly, the gig economy is bad for workers. Employers are doing their best to eliminate the cost of workers compensation and unemployment. These are serious benefits, worth thousands of dollars, that independent contractors do not get. Independent contractors have little to no federal protection from otherwise illegal discrimination and need to go to small claims instead of Department of Labor if we go unpaid. Employees are also entitled to FMLA leave, and in New York, family leave laws. Employees have the right to unionize and the employer is forced to enter good-faith negotiation with the employee union. Under today’s law in New York, the only way to take any of these benefits, if you are a commission employee misclassified as an independent contractor, is to dispute the issue on a case-by-case basis. How many people have the guts to do that?

We’re not even getting the benefits of being independent contractors, which would be the write-offs, the ability to hire other workers, and the ability to set our own hours. Think about it. How many of us in the freelance sector print our own transcripts or have consistent business write-offs? Yes, it is nice to write-off the occasional mailing fee, but the agencies have largely taken up any function that gets a write-off except for your starting equipment fee. Ironically, I have more write-offs as an employee with the state, thanks to my 1099 income, than I ever did as a freelancer. The ability to hire other workers? Go ahead and try sending someone who isn’t you to a deposition. See how many times you can do that before they stop sending you work. When I call my plumber, I don’t get to choose who he or she sends. Setting your own hours? Don’t know about everyone else, but I know that I got deposition forms that said please arrive early and gave me a start time. My hours were more or less set by the work, which really isn’t that much different from your boss telling you I need you at 10 tomorrow. We live in America, and people are entitled to refuse work any day they feel like, it’s not something we need the mantle of independent contractor for.

From New York to California independent contractors are beginning to challenge their status or realize the raw deal. California came out with a simplified three-part test for independent contractors. Maybe we should have a serious discussion about whether the title is worth keeping for most of us. Maybe we should talk about new laws and enforcement for independent contractors in New York.

It’s absolutely ludicrous to me that we box ourselves into a position where “freelancers” who are meted work, have deadlines dictated to them, are told when to arrive, what to bring, and disciplined via withholding work when deadlines are slipped, defend this model. The numbers don’t lie. Turnaround times are six times faster. Rates haven’t risen with inflation. Independent contractors save employers 30 percent. What could you do with a 30 percent raise? Hell, what could you do with a 10 percent raise? I mean, I have to go back to the article where I calculated out 1000 different rates. If you’re the breadwinner, unless you’re making at least $5.50 a page average, you’re working nights and weekends to make ends meet. The pricing structure doesn’t even need to change. The only thing that would have to change is agencies would have to pay minimum wage if your page rate didn’t give you at least minimum wage. Guess what? That’ll basically never happen. Imagine a world where you go take a deposition for an hour and only make 20 pages. Now imagine you transcribe for one hour. Your page rate is $3.25. $65 for two hours. Not a great rate but realistically what my generation was lowballed with. Way above minimum wage. We’re specialized workers, we deserve it.

Ultimately, I am of the opinion that in this market and under these circumstances the losers are the independent contractors. There are no substantial gains to being independent contractors, and anyone with private clients could just continue their private clients as a separate business entity. My opinion is malleable and I’m open to debate, but beyond the shallow arguments of we have always been independent contractors and we buy our own equipment, I’ve heard precious little that impresses me. You know who else buys their own equipment? Teachers.

Maybe it’s time for a swap. Maybe it’s time for our trade organizations to shift to labor unions. At the very least, it’s time to talk about these issues in public and consider what can be better.

EDIT. On February 11, 2019, I discovered this JCR article which appears to have a different viewpoint than my own but also talks about the issue. I feel it is important, when possible, to give as much information as possible, so please feel free to review that and join the discussion.

To E Court Reporters and Transcribers

I’m writing to you today because chances are high we aren’t that different. Maybe we both like law, or depositions, or working with lawyers. Maybe we both heard this was a great career with lots of potential. Maybe we will both face the same hurdles and challenges. Maybe you’ll cruise around my little blog here and find articles that pertain to you.

For the longest time, the deposition was the space of the stenographic reporter. Depending on where you’re at, we were making a lot of money and still have great careers today. Now what’s happened is the companies that previously used stenographers are trying to move towards transcription. They’re using you all to record and transcribe what we take down and transcribe. And I’m here today to make two points for your benefit:

Try stenography. It’s easy to learn, it’s hard to do fast, and our community is in the process of building free resources for you to try it out.
There’s a constant and unending thing at play called the market.

Stick with me, because I’m going to offer solutions. We all know that there are buyers and sellers of goods and services, and they are always, through one way or another, negotiating. If Law Office A doesn’t like Reporting Company B’s style or service, they can always use Reporting Company C. That’s the market at work. But there’s an unspoken side of the market, the labor force. Stenographers, voice writers, electronic reporters, transcribers, are all players in the market, and our actions can dictate our future.

Succinctly, when I was a deposition stenographer I was making only about $3.50 to $4.00 a page, and 25 cents to 50 cents a copy. That’s on a regular 14-day turnaround. There were also services where we’d rush the transcript for more than 6 bucks a page. To put that in perspective, let’s say that a fast-talking lawyer can do at least 60 pages an hour. 240 an hour. But for every hour at a deposition it would take me about an hour of transcription, 120 an hour. Sounds high, right? But I was an independent contractor and had to factor in the days where I made $0.00.

So now let’s take you, the valuable, amazing person they’re now pitching $20 an hour at, or $40 an hour at. Let’s say that you’re also doing the transcription work, and let’s assume it takes you much longer so you’re getting more hours transcribing. $40 at the 1 hour deposition, then four hours of transcription. $200. It takes you 5 to 10 hours of work to make pretty much the same $200 I was getting in two hours. Don’t forget, you’re doing pretty much the same work, it’s just taking you longer and making your life harder.

So what are the solutions? I’ve got 3:

Try stenography. It’s going to make your life easier. You’re going to command higher rates and pump out work fast. Has someone told you it’s dead? Consider whether they have a financial interest in telling you that.
Negotiate for more. Just like I’ve told stenographers for the last 4 years we are what we ask for. The work you’re doing is hard, and it is valuable. They can afford to pay you more and they know it, and I know it, and now you know it too. They’re not passing the savings of using you off to the lawyer, they’re pocketing it. And as capitalism teaches us, the money is always better off in our wallet.
Unionize. I’m not even kidding. As freelancers we deposition reporters would’ve had an uphill struggle to unionize. Unions are a dirty word now but let’s look at what they’re entitled to by law: Good-faith negotiations. Ultimately the union gets a peek at company finances and the company and union negotiate on what would be a fairer market rate for the services being provided. Where direct pay isn’t available, a union could negotiate for job security, better workplace rules, and medical or other benefits. There are even already legal workers unions in NYC.

If you found this helpful, spread the knowledge. Empower your colleagues. Fight because this is a fight worth winning. If you found this strange, consider that the rules in life are too. The longer you play by the rules dictated to you by others, the more you are set to lose. Take control. Be polite, be professional, be the best, but go forward with the understanding that you are a market force, and your actions dictate the future.