Video game workers in Quebec, among the Game workers unite Montreal banner, be cooperation with the Canadian trade union Confédération des syndicats nationalaux (CSN) in an effort to shape the industry for the better. Together they launch an industrial action to form a provincial union for Quebec video game workers. Quebec is home to nearly 15,000 employees at studios such as Behavior Interactive, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., according to GWU Montreal. Games, Electronic Arts and Gameloft, making it a hotbed for the industry and its employees.
Together they hope to make not just one or two studios a better place to work, but all of them. “The general public loves games and consumes them every day, but has no idea how games are made, or by whom,” Marie, a games writer, told Polygon. (Marie asked to be identified by their first name only because their employer doesn’t know they’re organizing anything.) “It’s an opportunity for us to take that struggle, that work that we’ve been doing for years, to a bigger platform. .”
Game Workers Unite operated for years as a democratic workers’ organization, but was not itself a trade union. Now that’s changing: under CSN, Game Workers Unite Montreal members (covering all of Quebec, not just Montreal) will have access to many more resources. Workers will join individual unions tied to studios, each of which will negotiate with their own employers, CSN president Caroline Senneville told Polygon.
“This structure will ensure the development of solidarity between studios, the sharing of collective knowledge and collaboration on common issues,” Senneville said. “Trade union members will be able to collectively decide which requirements apply, while the autonomy of the local components is guaranteed. A province-wide union gives workers a greater balance of power because they are a larger group. Everyone will benefit from this, but especially the small studios.”
According to Marie, there is a lot to like about the video game industry: it is a young, modern field full of passionate, creative people. “But perhaps the public doesn’t know that it’s an industry on fire,” they said, referring to the mass layoffs and studio closures that have plagued the company for several years now; Nearly 10,000 people have been laid off this year alone. This is on top of the heavy workload, low wages, tight hours and sometimes physical and mental abuse. Rida Hamdani, who previously worked in quality assurance, told Polygon that job stability was a major problem in that sector: When you worked on a contract basis, you could have work one week and no work the next.
With CSN, GWU Montreal becomes a bigger destination for answers And staff. “What are the standards for working conditions?” Hamdani said. “What are the labor laws? Is this normal? Those are all things we’ve been doing for a while, but with the help of the CSN, it’s going to make it easier for gaming industry workers to access that information and legal help to know their rights.
The ability to negotiate union contracts will allow workers to use this information for real change.
It can be easy to separate the worker from the product – in this case, video games – but Marie and Hamdani hope the industrial action can help humanize the industry. They want players to understand that unionization not only impacts workers and their livelihoods, but also gaming itself. It is not only ethically right to support other people’s right to safe and fair work; it will also affect games being made.
“If the industry continues as it has in recent years, with studio closures and game projects canceled due to mass layoffs, it will be a major loss for players,” Marie said. “It is in the interest of players to inform themselves about how a game is made. Who makes games, and in what condition? It is a creative industry, and the industry relies on the backs of its workers.”
“The people who make games deserve the same respect as the games themselves,” Hamdani said.