Sega of America workers want to unionize
Sega of America employees at the Irvine, California office filed a union ballot with the National Labor Relations Board, the workers announced on Monday. The union is called the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega – or AEGIS – and works in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America. The slogan, “to be this good, needs AEGIS”, is a pun on an old Sega slogan.
The unit currently includes 144 functions at its headquarters in Irvine, California, and across several departments: marketing, games as a service, localization, product development, and quality assurance. The Sega of America office in Irvine, which will open in 2022, houses up to 235 Sega US employees. AEGIS-CWA is the first multi-department union at a major company, something Activision Blizzard employees attempted earlier this year at Boston-based Proletariat. The video game industry’s union campaign was largely led by QA employees and independent studios; Tender Claws Human Union was one of the first of these studios to span multiple departments.
“Working for SEGA is a passion for many of us and it was so exciting to see that by organizing this work we can turn this work into a sustainable long-term career,” QA chief Mohammad Saman said in a statement. “By establishing our union, AEGIS-CWA, we have a say in the decisions that shape our working conditions and ensure the job security and working conditions we deserve. We are excited to protect what already makes SEGA great, and to build an even stronger company together.”
Sega of America employees, who work on franchises such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Persona, are seeking higher base pay for all unit members in addition to increases in line with inflation, improved benefits, clearly defined promotion and advancement plans, balanced schedules and “adequate staffing” to “end patterns of overtime,” workers said.
Sega Sammy, the holding company of Sega and Sammy Corporation after the 2004 merger, announced in February that Japanese workers would see a 30% salary increase. further strengthen its global competitiveness.” GamesIndustry.biz. The increase did not extend beyond Japan and followed a pattern of pay increases from Japanese studios such as Nintendo and Capcom.
Sega of America did not respond to Polygon’s request for comment. Two Sega of America workers and union members told The Verge they had not experienced union destruction by management; they hope that the leadership will voluntarily recognize the union. No date has yet been set for the union elections.
The union announcement is another milestone for the video game industry’s union effort, which kicked off in earnest when employees of defunct indie studio Vodeo Games announced their union in late 2021. game studios, big and small, but also through makers and sellers of table games. Notably, Activision Blizzard is housing two QA unions at its Blizzard Albany and Raven Software studios as the company works to be acquired by Microsoft through the Federal Trade Commission. Microsoft, for its part, has pledged neutrality to unions, and from there ZeniMax Media QA staff voted for unions, bypassing the NLRB process of voting through authorization cards and an online portal. Should Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard go ahead, the neutrality agreement will also apply to all Activision Blizzard studios.
Game workers across industries have traditionally been pushed to their limits by relentless scarcity, low wages and discrimination; it has been well documented for years in both court cases, on social media and in the press. Workers have pushed back on all of that in recent years and are looking for a paycheck for the workforce and a place at the table to negotiate their labor rights. It’s a reflection of a broader movement in the United States, where employees are taking on bosses at big companies like eBay, Starbucks and Amazon.