Unions in the USA and the UK who are active in the digi-tech sector have turned their attention to organising workers in the gaming sector. Initial organising efforts have proved fruitful especially in the USA where a number of ‘in house unions’ or niche unions have been formed. Some of these, having established a base, have gone on to affiliate to a larger mainstream union.
James Bowen branch secretary of Unite’s London digital and tech branch said: “In the face of layoffs and threats to terms and conditions, workers in the gaming sector in the USA formed company wide local unions which then associate with a larger national union. This allows the organisation to keep their identity whilst being part of a bigger movement. It makes sense.”
Gaining a foothold in the gaming industry
In the UK a small union, the Independent Workers Of Great Britain (IWGB), which is not affiliated to the TUC, has become the first union in the UK games industry to get foothold in the gaming sector with their campaign at the ZA/UM, publishers of the Disco Elysium role-playing video game. The IWGB said unionisation was a response by workers to layoffs during the financial downturn, when 900 UK game workers were laid off in 2023, followed by ‘almost 15,000’ workers worldwide in 2024.
Eugenia Peruzzo, organising officer of the IWGB Game Workers Union: “Our first IWGB ZA/UM recognition agreement is a proof of the power that game workers have when they come together, trust each other and join our Union. Recognition agreements lay the groundwork for a healthy relationship between the company and workers. They have rebalanced the scale of powers after a few terrible years for the game industry and the redundancies we have seen happening at ZA/UM lately. We are looking forward to many more to come in the future.”
USA and Canada setting an example
In March this year workers across the USA and Canada launched a United Videogame Workers-CWA Local 9433 (UVW-CWA), a direct-join, industry-wide video game union with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a move undertaken in partnership with the American Federation of Musicians (AFM).
UK unions need to develop a nationwide organising strategy similar to the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) programme in the USA and Canada, giving workplace power to defend jobs for the future. The launch of UVW-CWA in the USA and Canada coincides with the fifth anniversary of the CODE-CWA which has helped over 6,500 tech and video game workers organise to join the union since 2020.
CODE-CWA is a network of worker organisers and their staff working to build the voice and power necessary to ensure the future of the tech, game, and digital industries in the USA and Canada. A project of the Communications Workers of America, which represents hundreds of thousands of workers throughout tech, media, telecom, and other industries to fight for justice on the job and in communities.
Mike Eatwell, until recently an official at Unite who represented workers in communications, digi-tech and media told me: “CODE-CWA is a nationwide strategy which started out by focusing on the sexual harassment endemic in gaming companies. They produced a video with a small group of game workers who talked about the problem and how the union was changing the playing field by arming the workers with the ability to fight back which began a momentum.”
Successful challenges to industry layoffs
Other recent successes include workers at Microsoft’s Diablo series voting to unionise, following concerns of layoffs. Job losses following take over is a real worry.
“With every subsequent round of mass layoffs, I’ve witnessed the dread in my co-workers grow stronger because it feels like no amount of hard work is enough to protect us,” said Kelly Yeo, Team 3 game producer on Diablo and a CWA organising committee member.
At Call Of Duty studio, Raven Software, workers who began organising three years ago have just won a new contract. And last year Bethesda developers across their US-based studios in Dallas, Rockville and Austin, formed the OneBGSUSA union. Microsoft, of course now the parent company of Bethesda, has recognised the union.
Layoffs following take overs is also a key issue in the UK, says James Bowen. “It is a mistake to think that being taken over by the likes of Microsoft means stability for employees, since the big tech firms divest themselves of business units as often as they acquire them.” An example is Microsoft’s acquisition of Metaswitch in 2020 and divestment to Alianza in 2025.
Job protection laws in the UK – even with the new legislation contained in the employment rights bill due to come onto the statute book soon – are still weak in protecting workers faced with takeovers and subsequent job losses.
More information on organising workers in the gaming sector can be found here.
