Summary:

The United Videogame Workers union, which launched with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), was announced March 19 at the Game Developers Conference. It’s an effort on behalf of developers and the CWA to champion unionization efforts without relying on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal agency that protects worker’s rights and working conditions. Their first campaign will focus on industry-wide layoffs; a GDC report released in January found that 11 percent of developers surveyed said they’d been laid off in the year prior.

The move comes at a time when the Trump administration has been hostile toward unions, issuing an executive order to end collective bargaining obligations with some federal agencies and firing an NLRB employee, crippling the agency. Both moves are currently being challenged in court. UVA-CWA does not have the same bargaining power as more traditional unions; it does not require an NLRB election, but lacks the legal obligation on employers to come to the table. As the NLRB stares down a difficult path under the current administration, however, a direct-join union could be a powerful alternative.

“Waiting on winning NLRB certification before workers can join and build power makes no sense in this current moment,” Tom Smith, CWA Senior Director of Organizing, tells WIRED.

Ben Sachs, a professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School, tells WIRED workers should expect to have a “far less friendly” situation with the National Labor Relations Board than the one that existed under President Joe Biden. “Relying on the NLRB right now to support union organizing and collective bargaining may be a bad strategy,” he says.

Most gaming unions have been established with the help of the National Labor Relations Board. The first major, US-based union formed in 2022 at Raven Software, after roughly two dozen employees in quality assurance won a historic bid for recognition with an NLRB election. Almost three years later, however, the union has yet to sign its first contract. While others have been able to organize openly and without fear of retaliation, thanks to a labor neutrality agreement from Microsoft—including a unit of over 500 members across multiple departments working on World of Warcraft—all of the aforementioned teams are also still working to secure a contract as well.