Over the past few years, the video game industry has gone through a change. More and more developers are looking to unionize. It began last year with Vodeo Games and over the course of this year, more and more employees at other companies are following suit. Raven Software, BioWare, and Blizzard Albany employees each voted to unionize. Now, some 300 ZeniMax Quality Assurance have announced their intention to form a union with the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees, from the Communications Workers of America. If a majority of employees vote in favor of the union, it would be the first within Microsoft and would become the biggest for the video game industry in the U.S.
“We applaud Microsoft for remaining neutral through this process and letting workers decide for themselves whether they want a union,” CWA President Christopher Shelton said in a statement to CNN Business. “Other video game and tech giants have made a conscious choice to attack, undermine, and demoralize their own employees when they join together to form a union. Microsoft has made a different choice, which other corporations would be wise to emulate for the good of their corporate culture, their workers, and their customers.”
As unions have formed within Activision Blizzard, Microsoft Head of Gaming Phil Spencer said they would recognize the union when Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through. Microsoft as whole said that they will recognize the rights of workers to organize. A Microsoft spokesperson told CNN Business that its neutral stance toward the organizing efforts of ZeniMax employees is “an example of our labor principles in action.” The spokesperson said that Microsoft remains committed “to providing employees with an opportunity to freely and fairly make choices about their workplace representation.”
Joe Slack, an Associate Quality Assurance Tester at ZeniMax who is part of the organizing committee for the union said that workers are “not starting a union to be against the company.” The workers want to have a seat at the table as management makes decisions that will impact them. “We just really wanted to have a voice,” Slack told CNN Business, “and try and help with communication with management, and figuring out how we can deal with all these different things that challenge the group as a whole.” Slack said workers came together after seeing “just so much room for improvement” in their workplace.
According to Slack, Microsoft has been “very accommodating” throughout the process. “They understand that it’s a right and they wanted to leave it up to the workers,” Slack said. “There’s this perception of an adversarial relationship between the union and management, and it doesn’t have to be that way,” Slack added. “I’m happy to be part of a group that’s trying to prove that and improve everybody’s life and well-being in the process.”