Autumn Mitchell is a QA Tester at ZeniMax Media and is a member of ZeniMax Staff United of the Communications Staff of America (ZWU-CWA). She is at present an elected member of the union’s bargaining committee, which is negotiating the phrases of their first contract with the corporate.
On Thursday morning, earlier than my first sip of espresso, the alerts began flooding my cellphone. My employer, Microsoft, was shedding 1,900 employees and it was everywhere in the information. I work on the online game firm ZeniMax, which was acquired in 2021 by Microsoft, so I felt a well-known, sickening feeling begin to take maintain.
However I can’t say it got here as a shock. So many individuals in our trade have misplaced their jobs this manner lately. In 2023, at the least 6,500 video game workers have been laid off (unofficial trackers have that quantity a lot greater). And even earlier than this newest spherical, 2024 hadn’t shown any sign of improvement.
The online game trade is large. It was bigger than the movie and music industries combined following the 2020 pandemic surge, and whereas it has dropped a bit since then, it stays a multibillion-dollar trade. Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless comparatively younger and lacks a historical past of profitable employee organizing.
That is what allowed Hollywood writers and actors to tackle streaming companies and the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers (AMPTP) final summer time and get most of what they bargained for. Video video games are topic to lots of the identical pressures — the waves of trade consolidation and disruption, accelerating launch schedules, and dealing situations like crunch durations that may drive as much as 100-hour weeks together with poisonous workplaces, all of which appear tailor-made to destroy employees. Much like the issues of leisure employees, AI is a rising concern, and whereas it isn’t widespread but, the extra corporations make investments, the extra we fear.
![A space dogfight in Starfield turns deadly as the player blows up an enemy ship.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GXN7KJM_b4skYlR7eKt8t-C41gY=/0x0:3840x2160/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3840x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24977060/Starfield_03_Destruction.jpg)
Picture: Bethesda Recreation Studios/Bethesda Softworks
Not very way back, I used to be one of many hundreds of online game employees feeling gnawed on by this aggressive, risky trade. It felt like issues have been rapidly changing into unsustainable. However one thing occurred. Throughout this spherical of layoffs, I felt one thing along with the acquainted disappointment and dread: I felt empowered.
Once I first joined ZeniMax in 2022 as a part-time QA contractor, it was instantly obvious that there have been cultural and systemic points within the division and within the trade. The pay was scandalously low, and there have been no clear pathways to skilled growth or promotion.
Finally, I grew to become a full-time worker, and I wasn’t shy about my perception that we should always type a union. Someday I discussed it to a co-worker, who stated, “Let me ship you a personal message.” In that message, she defined {that a} group of our co-workers had already been organizing for over a yr — sharing grievances about firm management, dwindling bonuses, and shedding good individuals to unhealthy insurance policies — over tabletop sport gatherings in a colleague’s basement and rallying collectively to do one thing about it.
Studying that I wasn’t alone was extremely encouraging, however we have been afraid. We didn’t understand how the corporate may reply if we went public with our intention to type a union. We’d seen employees at different corporations face demoralizing alleged union-busting campaigns. Once I joined up with the hassle, my co-workers have been in search of a union that would assist present the construction and know-how to beat that type of opposition. We reached out to union representatives and finally selected Communications Staff of America (CWA) as a result of it was most aligned with what we wished, knew precisely what we have been up towards, and had confirmed methods for achievement. We have been particularly impressed by the instance of QA testers at Raven Software program, who received to the end line with CWA’s assist.
It wasn’t lengthy after we selected the group that Microsoft signed a labor neutrality settlement with the CWA. So, at the least in concept, we knew that it was potential to type a union with out encountering the type of belligerent union-busting we’d heard of at different corporations. Nonetheless, no Microsoft employees had ever completed this. The corporate had dedicated to following the regulation, however wouldn’t it discover different methods to make our lives depressing? We have been a small group of low-paid employees in a small metropolis making calls for of a large multinational company. And we have been blazing a brand new path.
We felt positive that if we did nothing, then nothing would change. Issues may even worsen, and the one means ahead was standing collectively and standing up for each other.
![Autumn Mitchell, the author, posing with Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO. Autumn is wearing a CWA button.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2oyVoNfeUAt2AOgxAE-PkZFQbkU=/0x0:1096x822/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1096x822):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25274459/autumn_mitchell_union_cwa.jpg)
And we received! Microsoft and our managers at ZeniMax stayed out of it and allow us to determine for ourselves whether or not or not we wished to have a union. That shouldn’t be uncommon, however it’s. Now we’re bargaining our first contract and making good headway. Already, we’ve gotten ZeniMax to agree to incorporate our subcontractor colleagues in our union and received the best to barter the best way AI is integrated into our work. And all of us have been spared over the last two rounds of layoffs. Whereas it’s unclear if that’s due totally to our organizing, our union standing doubtless saved us.
We now have one thing extra sure than luck, one thing extra highly effective than hope: We now have a union.
My coronary heart breaks for my co-workers who’ve been impacted by these layoffs. Should you work in video video games and are feeling the worry in the present day, it’s time to begin having conversations along with your co-workers about it. This might sound small and trivial, however they’ll construct the muse of a online game trade the place employees have the facility to guard each other from the worst impulses of their employers.
Each single one in every of us deserves a say in what the way forward for the trade seems to be like. The individuals who have poured their power, abilities, and time into creating unimaginable, immersive experiences that generate billions in company income deserve dignity and respect.
In case you have ever as soon as considered the way you and your colleagues might have extra enter at work, search for a union on-line and speak to people who find themselves skilled in constructing unions — see if it’s an answer that may be just right for you and your co-workers. CWA continues to help us as we discount our first collective contract. It’s working for us, and we proceed to interact our employer on options to the problems at our jobs.
Should you’re an organization with staff organizing their labor, do the best factor and permit them to train that proper with out interference. Your staff are the individuals bringing you concepts and options to develop your enterprise every single day. Return that power by respecting their rights. Who is aware of? You might be stunned at what you study your enterprise on the negotiating desk.