Unionization is happening in full swing in the United States as 300 quality-assurance workers at ZeniMax Studios, a Microsoft subsidiary, have voted to join the union. ZeniMax Studios based in Maryland, USA is a video game subsidiary company of Multinational tech giant Microsoft.
This will be the first union in Microsoft in the United States and also the largest in the video game industry.
The announcement regarding the creation of a union at ZeniMax was made by the Communications Workers of America. Following the move of workers, Microsoft approved the creation of a union as promised earlier.
Wayne Dayberry, a senior tester at a video game company told news agencies that the decision to create a union was made long before Microsoft acquired ZeniMax in 2021. Wayne Dayberry said that the union was created to address common workplace issues found in video game companies.
According to Wayne Dayberry, quality assurance departments in the video gaming industry are treated poorly, paid very little, and treated as replaceable cogs.
He added that the creation of the union was a matter of dignity for the workers in the quality assurance department and that they are showing other departments that they can also do the same. He also said that the neutrality promises given by Microsoft in the case of the unionization in Activision Blizzard gave them the confidence to ahead at ZeniMax.
The unionization of quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Studios got an extra push as Redmond-based Microsoft is looking to acquire Activision Blizzard, a video game giant based in California. In June 2022, Microsoft and CWA got into an understanding that Microsoft will stay neutral in case workers at Activision Blizzard decides to create a union.
Microsoft decided to take this unusual step to garner public support for its mega acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Even though the unionization of workers at ZeniMax was not part of the deal between Microsoft and CWA, the latest approval for unionization from Microsoft hints at the broad-based principled approach followed by the software giant regarding the creation of unions.
Since the agreement with CWA, three units of workers at Activision Blizzard offices in Middleton, Albany, and Boston has set up unions. On December 27, 57 workers of Proletariat, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard based in Boston, filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize.
Microsoft’s decision to acquire Activision Blizzard had set off concerns regarding the rights of workers and competition in the gaming market, post Acquisition. Federal Trade Commission of the United States is already suing to block the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft.
