The Union of Quebec Writers and Writers (UNEQ) on Tuesday evening sent its members the apologies of its president, Suzanne Aubry, for the insufficient information sent to authors about the association’s recent strategic shift, activated by changes to the status of the artist laws.
It was accompanied by a 38-page information guide, subtitled “To know everything about UNEQ’s current issues and to prepare for the extraordinary general meeting of March 29 ». A belated transparency exercise.
“In wanting to proceed quickly with the start of negotiations, we have skipped an essential step”, writes in the email the author and president of the UNEQ, Suzanne Aubry, namely “that of ensuring that everyone received regular, clear information and detailed to enable them to better appropriate the new legislative reality of UNEQ and its many implications”.
“I recognize this lack of information and I sincerely apologize for it,” she continues. The guide attached to the missive takes stock of the situation and the strategies of the UNEQ, which reveals its budget, its financial difficulties and its intentions, assistants of quantified comparisons with the contributions requested by certain other artistic unions.
We learn, among other things, that the UNEQ has been trying more vigorously for two years “to curb temporarily a phenomenon of greater chronic deficit”. Between 2015 and 2020, UNEQ’s deficit fluctuated between $162,000 and $50,000. In 2021, it was $52,000; last year, $2400.
The high price of negotiations
“UNEQ’s budget is around one million dollars a year,” it says. Subsidies change little (or slowly) and the charges to be borne, for their part, experience rapid inflation. »
Negotiations of multiple collective agreements that UNEQ intends to carry out in the coming years also make hiring necessary, the document states. year for the next two or three years. »
The work commissioned by the Maison des écrivains, located on rue Laval, in Montreal, valued at between $180,000 and $220,000 for the next five years, would be added to the budget if the UNEQ reconsidered its decision to sell it. The rent for the premises where UNEQ intends to move, adjacent to those of the Union des artistes, is $48,500 per year.
The three main sources of UNEQ funding for 2021-2022 are, in order, grants (projects and operations) from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, membership fees, and grants (projects and functioning) of the Canada Council for the Arts. The Secretariat for the Promotion and Enhancement of the French Language (projects) is the fourth major source.
All contracts since June 2022
The UNEQ also lists the main points it intends to negotiate with publishers, both with the National Association of Book Publishers and Sogides (in progress) and in future games. It aims to specify the nature of the contract (license versus transfer); remuneration (quantitative, by looking for an increase in the sums collected, and qualitative, such as the frequency of payments and reporting, for example); the periodicity (contract signature and publication deadlines, validity period, etc.); the freedom of practice of the author, particularly for the choice of publishers of future works; the possibilities of termination; and promoting.
The whole thing aims to produce and impose a standard publishing contract, with minimum protected conditions.
I recognize this lack of information and I sincerely apologize.
We also learn that the UNEQ would levy contributions on the advances. Union dues would not be capped, to avoid a violation of the principle of solidarity. Professional literary artists, who will be required to pay dues whether or not they are members, include translators and illustrators in addition to authors. Self-published artists are excluded.
Another change in the UNEQ’s interpretation is that the application of the new law – and therefore of the contributions – is from June 3, 2022, and only on contracts signed from that moment. “We could not impose modifications on contracts signed before that date, unless the collective agreement is retroactive or the contracts include a specific clause on this subject (a “trailer clause”). »
On March 29, the members of the UNEQ — and only them — will be called upon to vote on union dues and the future of the Maison des écrivains. Since the announcement of this next vote, on January 19, 144 writers have become members of the union, which said at the end of 2022 there were 1,700.