Union News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

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Game Workers Unite Montreal has teamed up with Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN) for better labor conditions.

Just Cause developer Avalanche has confirmed plans to enter a collective bargaining agreement with Swedish unions.

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Sega Of America employees have become the first a major US video games studio to ratify a union contract. The contract covers guarantees minimum yearly pay increases for around 150 staff through 2026.

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600 Activision Blizzard quality assurance (QA) workers have voted to unionise.

Another swath of Activision QA workers has unionized, as the Communication Workers of America announced today that Microsoft has voluntarily recognized a union for workers at Activision Central Quality Assurance.

IGN parent company Ziff-Davis has voluntarily recognised the recently formed IGN Creators Guild.

French game workers union STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo) is organising a strike today across three Ubisoft studios.

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The Communication Workers of America union has unveiled new guidelines over how it believes artificial intelligence should be used in the workplace.

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An unholy union of stealth-based FPS and weird western horror works like dynamite in Hyperstrange’s. With the game now releasing after almost two years spent in Early Access, the final version delivers a substantive, often grueling action-RPG experience with some light survival horror elements, all presented in gloriously low-rez 3D. The eye-catching gritty aesthetic pairs beautifully with the macabre country atmosphere, and fans of horror games, challenging Soulslikes, and the classic series (Stephen L. Russell incidently joined the game's voice cast recently) will not be able to tear themselves away.

Back in August of this year, it was announced that Sega of America employees would be forming a union—the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS-CWA)—alongside the Campaign to Organise Digital Employees (CODE-CWA). 

The Hollywood actors’ strike is over, and the race to resume production on next year’s biggest movies and TV shows has begun. Actors union the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced late Wednesday that it had reached a tentative agreement with the studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

On Tuesday, former Keywords Studios QA testers based in Edmonton, who worked on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, picketed in front of developer BioWare Edmonton, despite EA's attempts to block the demonstration.

Former employees of Keywords Studios who unionized under the banner of Keywords Edmonton United are planning to strike outside of BioWare's Edmonton headquarters on November 7, beginning around 11AM to 12PM local time. The striking union members—who had previously been working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf before BioWare ended its contract with their employer—are protesting what they describe as an unfair termination by Keywords that they say was motivated by their unionization efforts.

While attending the AI Safety Summit in the UK as India's representative, Union IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar unexpectedly encountered Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The series of surprises did not stop there as the IT minister struck up a conversation with the billionaire and found out that Musk's son's middle name was the same as his last name - Chandrasekhar. The Union minister shared this strange coincidence online in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Google for India 2023: The India-centric event focusing on Google's users and partners in the country, concluded today, October 19. During the event, Google announced a wide range of services and new initiatives in India, including made-in-India Pixel phones, starting with the Pixel 8 series. Artificial intelligence (AI) also was a major attraction as the tech giant made several announcements relating to its integration into different Google products. Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who was a key dignitary of the event, was invited for a fireside chat where he highlighted the big steps India has taken towards 6G technology.

The CWA sees a bright future for Activision employees.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA), one of America's largest unions, believes Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard will «transform» the video game and technology labour market.

The Communications Workers of America union has expressed delight in Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard, calling it a “new day” for workers at the Call of Duty maker.

After the WGA writers' strike finally came to an end after over 100 days, you might have been anticipating the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike following suit as the union and studios headed back to the negotiating table. 

Some staff at CD Projekt Red, the Polish developer of Cyberpunk 2077 and the Witcher games, have formed the Polish Gamedev Workers Union in response to recent layoffs at the studio.

Developers at Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt Red have formed a union. The union was formed in response to the company's three rounds of layoffs this year, as reported by Eurogamer. Polish Gamedev Workers Union founders Lev Ki and Paweł Myszka say that all necessary documentation has been submitted but that the union hasn't heard any response from CDPR management, according to the publication. 

There's a side mission in Cyberpunk 2077 that involves abducting a notorious union-breaker. One wonders if any of the people who worked on that have joined the union founded by CD Projekt RED employees this month. The union is part of the larger Polish worker's organisation OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza, and comes in response to CD Projekt's firing around 100 employees in July due to "overstaffing". Its membership is anonymous and open to people in the industry who aren't employed by the Witcher and Cyberpunk studio, but are thinking about forming a union in their own workplace.

A new Polish game developer union has formed following three rounds of layoffs at The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt.

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Workers at Polish games maker CD Projekt are in the process of forming a union.

Developers at CD Projekt Red—the Polish studio responsible for a trilogy of videogames about a worker who believes in negotiating a fair price for his labor and one game set in a dystopian future where corporate exploitation is the rule—have formed a union. The Polish Gamedev Workers Union (PGWU) is part of the national union OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza, and is open to developers who work for other studios in Poland.

Staff at Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt are forming a union in an effort to represent and provide a voice for “all Polish gamedev workers” while improving industry conditions, after around 9% of the company’s development studio CD Projekt Red were laid off earlier this year.

The team of bug-fixing quality assurance (QA) staff who unionised while working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf have all been laid off.

The actors union group SAG-AFTRA has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a potential strike against the games industry. Members were nearly unanimous, with 98.32 per cent of the vote being in favour of a strike — if a strike is necessary.

SAG-AFTRA members have voted 98.32% in favor of authorizing potential video game strike action.

Members of SAG-AFTRA, the labour union for American actors, have voted overwhelmingly in favour of potential video game strike action.

The writers’ strike is (almost) over. The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a collection of Hollywood’s biggest studios, came to a “tentative agreement” on a new contract on Sunday, heralding an end to the WGA strike that started on May 2.

Ubisoft Singapore is facing union action organised by the country's Creative Media and Publishing Union (CMPU).

According to a new Kotaku report, Ubisoft's Skull & Bones has been besieged by more development troubles. Lead developer Ubisoft Singapore has reportedly lost Elisabeth Pellen, the third creative director brought on to help with the online pirate game. 

Kemco will release a physical Yggdra Union 3-in-1 Special Edition for Switch on January 25, 2024 in Japan as part of its new “Bundle Games” brand, the company announced.

SAG-AFTRA, the union for US actors, is moving towards a potential strike against video game publishers, it’s announced.

Actors' union SAG-AFTRA have voted "unanimously" to send a strike authorisation vote to its members, ahead of resuming negotiations with video game companies including Activision, Epic and Take Two. The vote could extend the actors's strike which has shut down filming on film and television productions to the video game industry.

The SAG-AFTRA strike that has brought several Hollywood productions to a standstill could extend to the video game industry.

The news comes ahead of an upcoming meeting between the union and multiple game companies.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Thousands of people gathered in New York City’s Union Square on Friday afternoon, hoping to win a massive gaming giveaway from Twitch streamer Kai Cenat. The crowd quickly grew out of control and spilled out of Union Square Park and into the street, engulfing cars and taxi cabs. Cenat has been questioned by police, who are considering charges due to the chaos of the unsanctioned event.

Over the last few years, governments around the world have been scrambling to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The reasons are many. Protecting supply chains, reducing reliance on Taiwan's TSMC, economic protectionism and national security are all valid reasons to boost domestic chip production. The EU is the latest body to take pass legislation. It's passed its own Chips Act, which allocates €43 billion ($48 billion) to support EU based semiconductor manufacturing.