1 day Ago By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
A video game union representing around 300 workers at Elder Scrolls, Doom and Fallout publisher ZeniMax Media have overwhelmingly voted for strike action if they’re unable to thrash out a deal over wages and workplace conditions with Microsoft, ZeniMax’s parent company. The unionised workers and Microsoft have been haggling over things like remote work options and outsourcing game testing for nearly two years; now, they say they’re prepared to down tools if their concerns aren’t addressed. QA workers founded ZeniMax Workers United in December 2023 , as part of the umbrella organisation of the Communication Workers Of America (CWA) union.
Microsoft acknowledged the union at the time, but as Brendy pointed out in a previous write-up, this likely isn’t an indication of union sympathies among the leadership. Microsoft had previously signed a “neutrality” deal with the CWA in order to grease the wheels of their Activision-Blizzard acquisition, allowing workers to "freely and fairly make a choice about union representation”. Last year, the ZWU participated in a one-day strike claiming that Microsoft did not adequately address employee concerns over their return to office policies and outsourcing practices.
According to a statement released yesterday, their members “are continuing to take a stand at the table over better wages, workplace improvements, and key concerns, including a lack of remote work options and the company’s replacement of in-house quality assurance work with outsourced labor without notifying the union.” They’ve now voted by more than 94% to approve their leaders to kick off a strike if Microsoft don’t give them a contract addressing these things. “Underpayment and costly RTO initiatives have caused many of us to put our lives on pause because our income does not match even the rising cost of living in the cities where ZeniMax insists we live and work to maintain employment,” senior QA tester Zachary Armstrong comments in the statement.
“None of us wishes it had come to this, but if Microsoft and ZeniMax continue to demonstrate at the bargaining table that they’re unwilling to pay us fair wages for the value our labor provides to our games, we’ll be showing them just how valuable our labor is.” Associate QA tester Aubrey Litchfield adds: “Despite being one of the world’s largest corporations, we’ve had to continuously fight for what should be bare minimum. Paying your employees a livable wage as a multi-trillion dollar company is the least they could be doing; however when addressed at the bargaining table, Microsoft acts as though we’re asking for too much.
Our in-house contractors have been working on minimal wages with no benefits, including no paid sick time. Workers are choosing not to start families because of the uncertainty of finances. We’ve released multiple titles while working fully remote.
When will enough be enough?” There’s been a lot of union action at Microsoft-owned companies lately. 241 Bethesda Game Studios workers started a CWA-affiliated union of their own last summer. 461 ZeniMax Online Studios staff followed suit in December .
Pay and working conditions aside, many of these workers are worried about job security and the effects of generative AI tools upon their livelihoods. Microsoft have sunk billions into genAI development , while laying off thousands of people in the course of their Activision-Blizzard acquisition. Nic has been taking the lead on our union reporting.
Here’s his piece on the recent announcement of an “industry-wide union” by the CWA, which aims “to not only build community and solidarity amongst video game workers, but also to build large-scale education campaigns about labor organizing in the video game industry.”.
