While independent notaries would be ineligible to form a union recognized by the NLRB for the purposes of collective bargaining, there’s nothing that prevents independents from forming a “guild,” for the purpose of collaboratively establishing professional, best practice standards, SETTING FEES, and providing negotiating techniques and guidance as a 501c 3, non-profit organization. Comments???
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Would such a guild require a membership fee? Are NSAs willing to pay for that fee as it would impact their bottom line? If a majority of NSA don’t join the guild they’ll still be competing against the low bidders.
There was once an organization known as the Signing Professionals Working Group, aka SPW. While this was a good start it fell apart almost immediately. To I know of no known NSAs who follow the SPW’s outdated processes.
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Excellent and responsive questions. The SPW is still a Code that I believe the NNA promotes that is reasonable and (my assumption) would be embraced by most independent notaries. (If the signing platforms would adhere to a fraction of the ethical standards therein, there likely would be no reason for a guild.) That said, yes, in union speak, those who would choose to not adhere to say, reasonable fee structures established by the guild, the effort to create a profitable industry for hardworking notaries, would likely be undermined. In terms of a fee structure, certainly the guild would require an operating budget, the cost of which apportioned accordingly among its members would depend on its priority objectives and the number of those who chose to join. The guild concept’s genesis is a response to the overwhelming posts in a variety of categories thanks to NotaryCafe, that express some of the egregious abuses to which very hardworking and honest notaries have been subjected.
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There are multiple 501c6 notary orgs across the country that do exactly as you describe. They include:
The California League of Independent Notaries
The American Society of Notaries
The Ohio Society of Notaries
The American Association of Notaries
North Caroline Notary Association
The Arizona Notary Alliance
Pennsylvania Association of Notaries
The New York Notary Alliance
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You may have missed my point. There does not appear to exist any single, national negotiating organization that carries sufficient lobbying weight to mitigate the abuses of the signing agent brokers or tech platforms. In fact, many that do exist merely hump notary related goods and training services and have very close knit ties with them on a quid pro quo basis. One such tech platform in MA actually congratulated the state Legislature for requiring attorneys be present when signing agents performed their duties.
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I don’t know about the rest, but the Pennsylvania Association of Notaries (PAN) deals mostly with automotive title issues.
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I’m very interested in organizing a guild in my state of Oregon. Excited to see others discussing the topic. My thoughts on building a national organization instead is that perhaps if notaries were organized by state first, those organizations could meet and discuss how to form a nationwide alliance.