What you need to know
- Sega of America employees are forming a union.
- The unionizing workers are asking for better pay, benefits, improved ways of advancing in their careers, and more.
- Several studios in the U.S. have already unionized, including Raven Software and Blizzard Albany under Activision Blizzard, as well as the entirety of ZeniMax Media's quality assurance team under Microsoft.
As talk of unionization continues to spread across the gaming industry, workers at more and more companies are banding together.
Employees at Sega of America shared on Monday that they are forming the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS) union. The workers — a supermajority of those employed at Japanese publisher Sega's American offices in Irvine, California — come from Sega's localization and quality assurance (QA) departments, and are asking for better pay, more ways to grow in their careers, an end to being understaffed and overworked, and for improved benefits.
"As employees at Sega, our goal is to create high quality games and cross-media experiences for our wide, devoted fanbase. Our lack of control over our own working conditions has greatly hampered this goal," the workers explained via the AEGIS Twitter account. "In the interest of delivering the best quality products to our fans, we must have the opportunity to make decisions that impact our working conditions."
Unionization, once unheard of in the gaming industry, is no longer a strange thing. QA workers at studios like Raven Software and Blizzard Albany have unionized. Earlier in the year, over 300 QA employees at ZeniMax Media unionized, forming the first union at Microsoft and the largest union in the gaming industry. Microsoft previously promised to remain neutral in any unionization efforts at its various divisions or across Activision Blizzard, if and when the acquisition goes through.
Windows Central's take
More unions in the gaming industry is a wonderful thing to see happen. It won't solve all of the issues facing employees and publishers alike, but giving workers better protection is always worth fighting for.
