Last weekend, the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, I allowed myself, with the “blessing” of some striking friends, to cross the door of the new Gabrielle-Roy library, in Quebec, just to capture the atmosphere, to take a few photos and, given the opportunity, to borrow a few comic books, why not!
So, I made a few floors, and yes, it’s pretty, it smells good, it shines brightly, and the masterful work There seems to be a rain of gold, by Micheline Beauchemin, against the backdrop of a giant spiral atrium, is more sparkling than ever. But was it the fact of coming back after several long years of absence, of having to swallow and digest a completely new architectural design or of meeting so many unknown faces on the floors? Still, I was rather uncomfortable in this somewhat surreal and feverish Saturday atmosphere, especially with the choir of striking clerks singing and dancing to a frenzied tempo outside.
In reality, I was in a daze and I wandered here and there with the strange feeling of being a stranger in a building that I had known since its very first inauguration, in 1983. And the decor was beautiful. Although it turned out to be flashy and ultra-modern, I found that it lacked warmth and humanity. What was missing, especially behind the counters, was the warm welcome from Cléo, Robert and Stéphanie, while in other areas, it was the reassuring and constant presence of Marie-Josée, Joanne and Nathalie that was missing. These employees, very professional and always ready to travel to help a homeless person on the computer, a lost immigrant, a regular in need of a chat or an overwhelmed mother.
What’s more, it was also sorely lacking in that special user-staff connection that makes it so good, “normally”, to frequent Gabrielle-Roy and the other branches in Quebec City. A “large extended family” aspect which, moreover, made the comedian Michel Mpambara say, during his first years in Quebec, that the Gabrielle-Roy library had been, by far, his favorite place of learning as a newly arrived immigrant from Rwanda in the 1990s.
Later, watching little girls move in front of the children’s shelves with the ease and gravity that are their own, I said to myself that there was ultimately something profoundly absurd in this situation of forced strike. So, after spending so much money to renovate the establishment (some $45 million), how could we forget to offer the money necessary to decently renew a collective agreement that expired in 2022? It would have been so simple, it seems to me, to provide the money necessary to offer a more suitable starting hourly rate, less precarious working conditions, a decent salary catch-up. So simple, yes.
That said, money does not grow on trees, we know that, but I only hope that we will light it in time on the side of the Canadian Institute of Quebec (managing organization), because it would be such a shame to forever losing the invaluable human capital represented by the 240 library employees on strike.
Such a shame…and unnecessary.