Blizzard's 'Diablo' Devs Unionize. There's Now 3,500 Unionized Microsoft Workers (aftermath.site) 13
PC Gamer reports:
The Diablo team is the next in line to unionize at Blizzard. Over 450 developers across multiple disciplines have voted to form a union under the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and they're now the fourth major Blizzard team to do so... A wave of unions have formed at Blizzard in the last year, including the World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Story and Franchise Development teams. Elsewhere at Microsoft, Bethesda, ZeniMax Online Studios and ZeniMax QA testers have also unionized...
The CWA says over 3,500 Microsoft workers have now organized to fight for fair compensation, job security, and improved working conditions.
CWA is America's largest communications and media labor union, and in a statement, local 9510 president Jason Justice called the successful vote "part of a much larger story about turning the tide in an industry that has long overlooked its labor. Entertainment workers across film, television, music, and now video games are standing together to have a seat at the table. The strength of our movement comes from that solidarity."
And CWA local 6215 president Ron Swaggerty said "Each new organizing effort adds momentum to the nationwide movement for video game worker power."
"What began as a trickle has turned into an avalanche," writes the gaming news site Aftermath, calling the latest vote "a direct result of the union neutrality deal Microsoft struck with CWA in 2022 when it was facing regulatory scrutiny over its $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard." We've come a long way since small units at Raven and Blizzard Albany fended off Activision Blizzard's pre-acquisition attempts at union busting in 2022 and 2023, and not a moment too soon: Microsoft's penchant for mass layoffs has cut some teams to the bone and left others warily counting down the days until their heads land on the chopping block. This new union, workers hope, will act as a bulwark...
[B]ased on preliminary conversations with prospective members, they can already hazard a few guesses as to what they'll be arm-wrestling management over at the bargaining table: pay equity, AI, crediting, and remote work.
The CWA says over 3,500 Microsoft workers have now organized to fight for fair compensation, job security, and improved working conditions.
CWA is America's largest communications and media labor union, and in a statement, local 9510 president Jason Justice called the successful vote "part of a much larger story about turning the tide in an industry that has long overlooked its labor. Entertainment workers across film, television, music, and now video games are standing together to have a seat at the table. The strength of our movement comes from that solidarity."
And CWA local 6215 president Ron Swaggerty said "Each new organizing effort adds momentum to the nationwide movement for video game worker power."
"What began as a trickle has turned into an avalanche," writes the gaming news site Aftermath, calling the latest vote "a direct result of the union neutrality deal Microsoft struck with CWA in 2022 when it was facing regulatory scrutiny over its $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard." We've come a long way since small units at Raven and Blizzard Albany fended off Activision Blizzard's pre-acquisition attempts at union busting in 2022 and 2023, and not a moment too soon: Microsoft's penchant for mass layoffs has cut some teams to the bone and left others warily counting down the days until their heads land on the chopping block. This new union, workers hope, will act as a bulwark...
[B]ased on preliminary conversations with prospective members, they can already hazard a few guesses as to what they'll be arm-wrestling management over at the bargaining table: pay equity, AI, crediting, and remote work.
How Trump is decimating federal employee unions (Score:2)
How Trump is decimating federal employee unions one step at a time [npr.org]
Cool (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Everyone knows Bizzard is a sweatshop yet there is no shortage of people who wanted to work there nonetheless....even before being partially unionized. Like everything else organized labor touches, you'll see quality deteriorate and costs increase. That train is never late. Good luck with that.
Morale (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't be nice if people treated people well and we didn't need laws?
Well, it would, but let's not discard laws just yet.
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be nice if companies treated people well and we didn't need unions?
Companies treated workers well, and Western governments provided a welfare state, because of the menace of the Soviet Union looking as a more attractive option to workers.
Once the Soviet Union imploded ending the Cold War, there were no menace anymore and the ruling class returned to their previous mode of operation, dialling the clock back to the XIX century with it's Dickensian Laissez-faire.
It's only logical that when we go back to the conditions that motivated Socialism, workers bring back the same old
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be nice if companies treated people well and we didn't need unions?
Don't you mean 'if people treated people well'? Its not *companies* that are mistreating people, its people who are focusing on accumulation of capital over the well-being of other people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism [wikipedia.org] - as a reminder, Karl Marx figured this out ages ago. I'm not advocating Communism, whatever that means since everyone seems to have a different idea of what this means, more just bringing it up since its an inherent part of capitalism..
Activision deserves a union (Score:2)
Probably the end of Blizzard (Score:2)