CD Projekt Red devs unionise after its third round of layoffs in three months
CD Projekt Red devs unionise after its third round of layoffs in three months
Staff at CD Projekt Red are uniting with others in the Polish video game industry to unionise. The union was formed aft…
Other devs, please follow suit.
This industry needs class consciousness in it yesterday.
Just because you're paid well doesn't mean you're not being mistreated.
It's valid to be thankful for what you have but to also know you deserve more.
I wish developers would learn that just because they're well paid doesn't mean they're getting the full value of their work. Your CEO didn't become a billionaire by paying you the full value of your labor.
There's always room for more and unions can get that.
This is from a Swedish perspective, but: My experience with unions has been that they think it's more important that nobody is paid more, than to pay everyone what they're worth. In other words they'd prefer everyone being paid equally over raising the minimum wage. Their motivation seems based in jealousy more than a sense of justice. The money they collect from their members is spent on offering stupid IT courses that nobody (except unskilled people) needs, or stuffing their own pockets.
I like the idea of a union, but to me it seems like the actual unions we have today either lack real problems to solve or forgot about them. Every time a representative comes to visit I just get angered by how out of touch they are. They should focus on their core values and get rid of all that idiotic fluff, so they can lower their fees and recruit more members. But like any organization they grew fat and slow.
Just because you're paid well doesn't mean others are not being mistreated
FTFY
without unions there could be a huge salary disparity between devs in the same role, in the same company, even in the same project. I've personally witnessed more than 2x, heard about even more.Sometimes it's more than justified with individual's performance and impact, sometimes it's not. Some people are just better skill-wise, some people are better at applying pressure on their employer, holding business-critical knowledge hostage or simply negotiating.
Point here is - while unionizing might make things better on average, there would be a very real pushback from people who are benefitting from current system and this is not necessarily management. For management in some cases it would be even a net benefit, since they don't have to deal with primadonnas and someone tying things to themselves just for leverage.
As an engr manager, I've often seen disparity as a result of being hired during good years vs bad years for the company. Or when someone gets a better offer to leave, the company may change their pay but no one else's. Or hiring externally vs a transfer from another internal team. Or whether the team is coding for frontend web vs dev tools, even if using the same language. Or if female.
It's always a challenge for one person to fix -- with HR, with the department head, with yearly budget. And sometimes fixing one disparity means not having the sway to fix another as well.
Which is to say -- pay transparency and unions are good for everyone. And if the company can't afford to treat the employees equitably, then the company shouldn't exist. (Or it should reduce its avocado toast budget.)
Eh, more of a case by case basis in the tech industry imo. Most game studio devs should probably unionize, but it's not all horror stories everywhere. I'm not against unionization by any means and it's always on the table, but when me and my coworkers already have great pay, great benefits, stable careers, and great work life balance I don't really see what additional benefits it would bring. It's an over-generalization to say that you'll be earning more money as a union employee when you're already making more than 90% of the population, I know first hand that some trades even make more than their unionized counterparts in my area.
It would being better pay, better benefits, even more stable careers and better work-life balance.
It doesn’t matter how much money you’re already making, or how good your benefits already are. If you have a Union, you can negotiate for improvements. There is always room for improvement, unless you’re working at a fully-mutual workers cooperative.
I know first hand that some trades even make more than their unionized counterparts
I’d be interested to learn more, do you have a source or anything?
Maybe its just me but I'd be way more likely to buy a game if I knew it was made by well treated workers.
Unfortunately, it's not many of us. A lot of folks don't even not buy games that aren't good, if they're heavily marketed.
"Good" is subjective. I know CoD is mangled corporate moneygrab trash, but it's still really fun, so I play it. The only reason I bought Cyberpunk was because I knew everyone was going to be talking about it and I wanted to be able to be part of the conversation, and it didn't disappoint.
*Devs working in Poland. Unions in Europe are per profession or economic sector not per company.
Unions don't work the same way in all european countries.
In France, the union I belong to is organized by local company and public service, with a spawling system of dual cascading federations by geographic sector and economic sector.
And there are several competing national union organizations which overlap. I don't know exactly how the other ones are organized
Austria has basically one big union (ÖGB), in which there are specific unions for different industries.
So, yeah. Every country has their own history and different approaches to unionization.
This is the difference between a trade union and an industrial union. You can join an industrial union elsewhere in Europe or even in the US, such as the IWW.
And Epic Games announced a big layoff coming soon. I dunno what's happening in the industry rn, but it's not looking good
The only thing happening in the industry is the same thing happening in every industry and most of the first world:
The wealthy owners and executive leader roles have learned that COVID, COVID supply lines, interest rates, 'consumer sentiment', and inflation, are all very easy scapegoats that both the public and investors will easily buy as reasons for lowering product quality and availability, while also firing employees, squeezing the non-fired ones to death, and raising prices. This has lead to almost 2 straight years of corporations showing record profits (even adjusting for the inflation that they are largely responsible for in the first place).
This downward spiral will continue until some force with nearly as much power pushes back.
This is typically and ideally a representative government in the form of regulation or taxation. But the US government has suffered decades of regulatory capture and congressional gridlock.
So the only other potential option is a large amount of highly populated unions. Which have to fight against nearly 100 years of media and political demonization and nearly 150 years of 'american independent attitude'.
The perfect modern system has all 3 parties; unions, government, and corporations, equally strong and antagonistic. Just as the perfect modern government would have the executive, legislative, and judicial branches equally strong and antagonistic. Neither could be much farther from the case here.
Stronger bigger unions. Weaker smaller corporations. And a government that actually functions. All are necessary to fix our current shit show.
People with lots of money want even more money. Less employees means less money that has to be paid out which means more money in the short term. Makes line go up for a while. Makes suits happy.
Silicon Valley Bank imploded, taking the easy money away from them.
That was just part of it. The entire tech sector massively retracted after the boom it saw during COVID, which is also responsible for the sudden enshittification of so many different products/services all at once.
Yup. They can’t take out interest-free loans to pay off their almost-interest-free loans. So now they’re scrambling to save money and build value the old fashioned way.
It already happened, at least on Mediatonic (Fall Guys), a subsidiary. They axed lots of game designers, the UI/UX designer, some other people and even the person who made all the promo art
Good for them! My union did massively right by me so far and as far as I am aware there have been zero downsides.
For workers, unions are 100% upside.
The extent to which you are arguing against overwhelming evidence cannot be understated. You are arguing against something less controversial than evolution.
We know that unions promote economic equality and build worker power, helping workers to win increases in pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions.
But that’s not all unions do. Unions also have powerful effects on workers’ lives outside of work.
Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.
Unionized workers are more likely to receive paid leave, have health insurance and pension plans.
Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers.
Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave
Workers get significant economic benefits from labor unions
Unionized workers earn 10.2% more than their non-union peers
Supporting workers’ right to organize is a key way to help boost wages and support quality jobs.
Unions provide major economic benefits for workers and families
YES. MORE.