The date of March 29, 2023 will be historic for the Quebec literary community, when a small majority of voting members of the Union of Quebec Writers and Writers (UNEQ) voted against the collection of union dues, but in favor of the sale of the Writers’ House.
Thanks to the controversial levies, the association wanted to fulfill an eminently union role, with the primary mandate of negotiating collective agreements with publishers, as provided for in the new Status of the Artist Act.
Around 5:30 p.m., more than 550 members were gathered on Zoom, “unheard of” for a UNEQ assembly. The two thorny issues were put to the vote late Wednesday. Technical problems, cacophony, impatience: the exchanges, to which The Press was able to attend in part, were to say the least agitated, the words “nursery” and “capharnaüm” having been spoken a few times.
The dues proposed by the UNEQ, ie 2.5% of income for members and 5% for non-members, have fueled controversy since last December. At the start of the meeting, the director general, Laurent Dubois, argued at length that this new source of income was vital to successfully completing the negotiations and alleviating a “structural deficit”, financed by reserves which are shrinking from year to year.
The members, in a proportion of 56% (248), rejected the dues proposal, while 40% (178) adhered to it. This democratic choice reverses the result of an assembly held last June, canceled due to a “procedural error”.
Writers’ house for sale
At the end of a second proposal, the board of directors received the mandate to sell the House of Writers. The fight was fierce: 189 members voted in favor while 175 opposed. According to an amendment, the UNEQ will however have to observe a moratorium of 18 months so that “the persons and groups concerned [aient] the possibility of filing acquisition projects whose mission is to promote literature or the profession of writer and writer”.
The vote on the sale went without any debate due to a quick “preliminary question”. UNEQ has made the move of its head office, Carré Saint-Louis, one of the “highlights” of its 2023-2025 action plan, a decision that has triggered an outcry in the literary community.
Testing patience
Over the course of the evening, carelessly open mikes made it possible to hear many grunts and curses among the hundreds of registered members.
According to the interventions, some participants disputed the choice of the trade unionist Jacques Létourneau, former president of the CSN, to lead the assembly, whereas the UNEQ does not exclude affiliating with the central trade union. Others would have liked Suzanne Aubry to be heard more at the microphone in her capacity as president. It was rather the general manager Laurent Dubois who answered the questions.
The polling firm commissioned by the UNEQ, SimpleSondage, also took it for the cold. Many connection errors undermined the pace of the assembly, to the great dismay of a president whose patience was praised on several occasions. It is perhaps the error message “504 gateway time-out” which, in the end, will have been the most debated.
It remains to be seen how the UNEQ will be able to fulfill its union mission without contributions from its members. At 11:50 p.m. Wednesday, the end of the meeting did not mean the end of the debates.