My default response to this is the notion of unionizing. Regional unions, city-wide unions, national unions, networks of unions.
All of us are members of the NNA, but my understanding is that it's an association in name only, and doesn't actually provide many of the benefits of a traditional association (IE industry representation for its members).
If we could establish a union or network of localized unions that have the ability to absorb new notaries to help guide them towards understanding what types of fees are appropriate for what kind of work, then that would remedy the problem of too many newer notaries taking too low of fees.
I'm the kind of person who wants to make sure that everyone is getting the largest benefit they can without stepping on everyone else's toes.
IMO, unionizing is one way to at least put some more weight on our end of the field to tip it back into balance a bit.
And by union, I don't necessarily mean union like a teachers union. But some common set of agreements that notaries invite one another to swear to... Or something like that.
There would always be people who wouldn't want to agree or who think that the low fees are fine. That's unavoidable. But at least it might be possible to get enough notaries in each of our respective regions to agree to a common set of standards that we could begin to shift things a little. |
