One contract, 4,000 authors

Not in hospitality, nor in education, nor in administration: I don't know if there are many professional fields in which people dedicated to a trade have such limited negotiation possibilities as our writers and translators. Directive (EU) 2019/790, on copyright in the digital single market, already recognizes in its preamble the vulnerable situation in which we find ourselves when improving our conditions, an aspect that the European Commission invites each country to resolve and which, in Spain, for now, barely seems a utopia.Certainly, it could be much simpler: most professionals in other trades have clear regulations and are legitimate in unionizing and negotiating specific conditions, which end up translating into what we know as collective agreements. However, current state legislation does not recognize literary authors as workers, but as mere holders (and hey, that's no small thing!) of their intellectual property. That is, as authors of works that generate rights, the exploitation of which brings economic benefits to these authors. But not through an employment contract, like other professionals, but through an author's rights assignment contract, which recognizes us with various rights, but not our evident status as workers. Within this framework, authors can associate and fight together for our conditions, as long as we do not exceed the limits set by the Competition and Free Market Law: that is, recommending or suggesting percentages of royalties and translation fees. Therefore, we can negotiate everything... Except for the most essential aspect of our work, which is remuneration!This is why I consider it so important that the representative entities of more than 4,000 authors from all over the Catalan Countries have united to defend the same contract model, drawn up by the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language (AELC) and presented last December. From now on, the writers, translators, and playwrights represented by the Col·legial Association of Writers of Catalonia (ACEC), PEN Català, the Professional Association of Translators and Interpreters of Catalonia (APTIC), the three playwriting entities of the Principality, the Valencian Country, and the Islands, and the AELC will have the same frame of reference, with the same starting point when defending our rights. It is, of course, a blind contract, without proposals or suggestions on the points where percentages and fees should be discussed, but I am convinced that the framework of this contract will represent an advance in aspects such as transparency, clarity, and balance between the two parties.No consensus among authors had ever been so great, neither at home nor in the State. Now all that remains is for the publishers to take joint responsibility, and for them to be encouraged, at the very least, to talk about it, something that the Publishers' Guild of Catalonia has so far flatly refused to do. We would all benefit.