“Historic” day for the cultural community: after years of waiting, the reform of the status of the artist was finally adopted Friday in the National Assembly, which many believed impossible a few weeks ago.
Tabled in April by the Minister of Culture, Nathalie Roy, Bill 35 was destined to die on the order paper, while the last parliamentary session before the elections ends in mid-June. But the Legault government and the oppositions had exceptionally agreed to study the bill on the Committee on the Economy and Labor rather than on the Committee on Culture and Education, which considerably accelerated the legislative process. .
The reform of the status of the artist was ultimately adopted unanimously on Friday at the Blue Salon, to the delight of artists’ associations and unions. The new law provides additional protections for artists, including expanding access to the Administrative Labor Tribunal and incorporating new provisions to combat harassment of any kind in the workplace.
This broad overhaul of the status of the artist also extends to writers and visual artists. The latter were until then under the yoke of a law with much less bite on working conditions than that which applied to artists in the performing and audiovisual arts. Concretely, writers and visual artists will now be able to sign collective agreements, rather than negotiating piecemeal with their publisher or producer to establish their conditions.
“New era” for writers
In a press release, the Union of Writers and Writers (UNEQ) hailed “considerable progress”, even going so far as to speak of a “new era” which is dawning for the world of literature.
“UNEQ is finally becoming the union writers deserve. […] It’s time for negotiations! Our desire is to work, with respect, with each of the players in the book chain, taking into account the multiple realities of the environment”, declared the general manager, Laurent Dubois.
The publishers had expressed reservations about the establishment of this new balance of power in the literary industry a few weeks ago, but the deputies still saw fit to legislate in this direction.
It should be noted, however, that the new law does not affect, as the Liberal Party and Québec solidaire would have liked, independent journalists, freelancers who nevertheless face realities similar to those of artists.
Minimum requirements
However, the reform of the status of the artist has been amended to tighten the screws on producers who are not members of an association and who use tax schemes to avoid giving artists their due.
The Union of Artists (UDA) welcomed this addition to the law. However, she expressed some disappointments on Friday, indicating in particular that she was worried that the Minister of Culture now has the power to set minimum conditions in a particular artistic sector. The UDA fears that this provision leads to working conditions to the benefit of producers rather than in the interest of artists.
“The UDA will therefore have to study very carefully the scope of this new regulatory power to measure its potential effect on the working conditions of artists in the most vulnerable sectors of activity, particularly those where there are no associations. of producers”, mentioned in a press release the president, Sophie Prégent.
Following the legislative text that has just been adopted, the government will have to table a report in five years in order to weigh the consequences of the new law.