Ironically, the attempt to organize company-wide trade union representation at the US game studio called “Proletariat” has now been called off.
As reported by The Verge, the union CWA (Communication Workers of America) canceled the elections and blamed studio boss Seth Sivak for it. He took the employees’ concerns as a personal attack and “demoralized and disempowered” the staff in several meetings. Free and fair elections to found a trade union have thus become impossible. “Proletariat” belongs to Activision Blizzard, where the cancellation was welcomed and interference denied.
But not so “proletarian”
“Proletariat” was founded in 2012, the studio allegedly got its name because of the dissatisfaction of the founders as workers in the games industry. The aim was to let all employees participate in the company’s success, explained the “proletariat management team” on the occasion of the planned vote.
As The Verge explains, while this would have been the third union representation under the Activision Blizzard umbrella, it would have been the first to include all professions in one company. “Proletariat” is best known for “Spellbreak”, but recently also worked on “World of Warcraft”.
At the Activision studio Raven Software, quality assurance employees formed a union last May. This was the first union at a major game publisher in the US. Another followed just a few weeks ago at Blizzard Albany. The background is not only a small renaissance of unions in the USA as a whole, but also the special circumstances at Activision Blizzard. Microsoft wants to take over the studio and this is currently being meticulously examined by competition watchdogs. The group has therefore assured that it wants to act cautiously on union issues, not only with the takeover candidate. The employees of “Proletariat” wanted to benefit from this, writes The Verge.
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