About 300 quality assurance workers at Microsoft’s ZeniMax Media, which owns Bethesda and other developers like Arkane Studios, MachineGames and more, have formed a union.
As Kotaku reported, the workers have formed a union with the Communications Workers of America, as the Raven Software and Blizzard Albany groups previously did, but the 300-strong number is significantly more than any previous effort and now the union largest within the American video game industry.
The ZeniMax Workers United union spans several US studios owned by ZeniMax Media rather than an individual developer, and is said to include “a majority” of the company’s QA workers. Microsoft has said it will remain neutral in the process and will not try to dissuade workers from seeking formal recognition.
“We applaud Microsoft for staying neutral during this process and letting workers decide for themselves whether they want a union.”
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“We applaud Microsoft for staying neutral during this process and letting workers decide for themselves whether they want a union,” said CWA President Christopher Shelton.
“The company is delivering on the commitments it made in its labor principles earlier this year, while also sending a resounding message to the video game industry: the right to freely and fairly choose union representation should be hands of the workers. not of management.”
Microsoft pledged to remain neutral in union efforts after it proposed to acquire Activision Blizzard, the publisher of other union studios Raven Software and Blizzard Albany. “Microsoft respects the right of Activision Blizzard employees to choose whether to be represented by a labor organization, and we will respect those decisions,” he said at the time.
Raven Software QA Merge Timeline: The Story So Far
However, Activision Blizzard itself, which is not yet owned by Microsoft or bound by its policies, said it would not voluntarily recognize Raven Software’s union and sent anti-union emails to employees ahead of its formal vote.
The Blizzard Albany union also faced pushback from Activision Blizzard after the publisher tried to postpone a vote that would have officially recognized the union, but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dismissed the claim.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day.