ZeniMax’s union has finally had enough after talking to Microsoft for two years.
We reported on a broader union within ZeniMax being formed last July. However, the CWA have been talking to people in ZeniMax, as well as Microsoft, for much longer. The CWA backed Microsoft in their successful bid to acquire Activision, because they believed Microsoft would be easier to negotiate with than their management at the time, particularly president and CEO Bobby Kotick.
Those talks bore fruit with the formal founding of a union among ZeniMax workers across different roles and parts of the company. However, this whole time, the union and Microsoft have been negotiating a formal contract and failing. Without that contract in place, the union did not have an agreement in place on how to lobby or negotiate with Microsoft on behalf of their workers.
As the CWA announced on their website:
“A bargaining unit of hundreds of video game workers at Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax Media—represented by Communications Workers of America Locals 2100, 2108, and 6215 (ZeniMax Workers United-CWA)—has overwhelmingly voted, by more than 94%, to authorize union leadership to call for a strike. ZeniMax Workers United-CWA and Microsoft have been negotiating for a first contract for nearly two years.”
To be clear, ZeniMax Workers United have not gone on strike yet. We can see this as an ultimatum to Microsoft to agree to a contract that they approve.
As reported by Kotaku, Microsoft gave this statement:
“Our quality assurance team is an integral part of our business and is key to our ability to deliver games our players will love. We respect the team’s right to express their viewpoints and are deeply committed to reaching a fair and equitable resolution that acknowledges the teams’ contributions.
There has been substantial progress over the course of the negotiations, reaching tentative agreements on a majority of the topics at the table. We have presented a package proposal that we believe is fair—if accepted it would result in immediate compensation increases, even more robust benefits and is in alignment to the company’s hybrid model of 3 days in office. We look forward to continuing this progress during negotiations.”
If this strike goes through, it will join the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike by voice actors against several video game companies. These strikes can adversely affect the production of video games at a time when the industry is in a precarious state. Of course, it’s precisely because of the industry’s current state, where we are now in the third year of ongoing layoffs and studio closures, that these workers are trying to form unions and go on strikes.
Everything may not necessarily be fixed immediately when the industry reverses its current trend and starts seeing growth again. But certainly, a change in how the business side of the industry is going could also be the impetus for things to change for these workers as well. We can only hope that working conditions improve in the video game industry from these actions.
