Beware of your wishes, they might come true. This pearl of wisdom, echoed even in Aesop’s fables, is tailor-made for the writers and the organization that represents them, immersed together in a psychodrama with a convoluted plot. By jamming as soon as it started, professionalization brought to light irreconcilable conceptions of the common good and a union immaturity which commands an electroshock.
The last few weeks have revealed multiple errors, inaccuracies and omissions on the part of the Union of Quebec Writers and Writers (UNEQ). Despite its asserted — and reaffirmed — desire to do well, it has not been able to honor the right to negotiation which it inherited with the overhaul of the Act respecting the professional status of artists. The writers were right to question its governance. The organization had chances to redeem itself; she never knew how to grasp them.
The law provides that the Minister may designate a mediator or an arbitrator in the event of difficulties. However, it is difficult to see how he could resort to such mechanisms in the immediate future. The departure en bloc of its board of directors, its president and its general manager leaves the UNEQ not only headless, but deprived of its vital organs. It doesn’t help.
Invested with the crucial mission of setting up a framework of minimum working conditions, the UNEQ has the duty to recompose itself quickly. It will be necessary for that that the organization and its members (and certain members between them) cease to look at the faience dogs. Otherwise, Quebec, which has already offered its support to the organization, will be right to be impatient and pull out all the stops to defend its law.
In the aftermath, the inexperienced union must question its “accounting” conception of this challenge, which does not fit well with the spirit of independence of the milieu. To imagine that authors will find redemption in a tussle over copyright is indeed wishful thinking. It will be necessary to be more inventive on the formulas and the means of weaving and deploying a social safety net worthy of the name to arouse the adhesion of the scalded authors.
In this regard, an urgent work of introspection will also have to be done by the authors. If the last general meeting was so chaotic, it’s because they didn’t know how to unite around this project either. However, the transition to the collective will take place, whatever the cost. Will they want to draw it to their measure or suffer it? The answer is still theirs, but for how long?