LogInAround 500 employees voted to unionize.
The development team behind the World of Warcraft has officially unionized. Known as the World of Warcraft Game Makers Guild (WoWGG), the union represents around 500 workers and is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
This union is a "wall-to-wall" union, which means it encompasses the entire development team, instead of only one specific division, including designers, engineers, producers, artists, and QA testers.
Samuel Cooper, senior producer of WoW, told IGN that the unionization effort started towards the end of 2021, in the wake of the California lawsuit alleging instances of harassment and inequality at Blizzard. Despite company statements, employees staged a walkout, demanding more action be taken. While awaiting government approval for the acquisition of Activision in 2022, Microsoft declared a new set of principles. These principles pledged a commitment to "collaborative approaches" that would simplify the process for workers deciding whether to form a union.
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Cooper clarified that the union aims to amplify employee voices, not oppose World of Warcraft leadership:
"This isn't an attack against our World of Warcraft leadership or something where we're like, 'We hate those guys,'" said Cooper. "We just want to make sure that our voices are being heard and that at some point we don't end up as numbers on a spreadsheet. Because you go up high enough and these people have never met any of us, none of the names mean anything to them."
In response to the unionization, Microsoft stated:
"We continue to support our employees' right to choose how they are represented in the workplace, and we will engage in good faith negotiations with the CWA as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement."
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