The World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild (WWGMG) announced on July 24th that they had formed a union organized under the Communication Workers of America (CWA). The news broke less than a week after Bethesda Game Studios employees also formed a union, both subsidiaries of Microsoft respectfully. This will also mark the second union under Microsoft that is now “wall-to-wall” or not limited to one discipline or department as most of the workers organized into unions at game development companies have been QA workers.
“You can tell just by talking to people how much they care about one another and the work that they do in the game. I think that that’s where [the unionization effort] comes from, the desire to stand together to fight for collective bargaining rights at the table.”
Kathryn Friesen, World of Warcraft designer
- Workers were able to organize openly including CWA tents on campuses due to the neutrality agreement signed between the union and Microsoft back in June 2022 meaning there would be no retaliation for union organizing. So far in the United States, there have been six unions representing 1,750 workers formed since 2022. Organizing started as far back as 2021 when Activision Blizzard was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing for discrimination against female employees. At the time, the company had not been acquired yet by Microsoft and many organizing efforts were met with retaliation including employment termination.
“This victory underscores the growing momentum of worker organizing in the video game industry and will hopefully continue to inspire other video game workers to form unions and raise industry-wide expectations for pay, benefits and respect for workers’ rights”.
CWA on the WWGMG unionizing
[…] Originally published in Labor Today […]