Save Our Game Workers: CWA Members Rally Across U.S. and Canada Against XBOX Layoffs

Earlier this week, over 800 CWA members, video game workers, community organizations, and local labor allies held coordinated “Save Our Devs” rallies in the U.S. and Canada to call out layoffs and corporate greed across the industry and to demand fair first contracts across Microsoft’s gaming studios. The rallies were made possible by CWA Locals 1118, 2100, 2108, 6215, 7250, 9433, and 9510 in the U.S., and CWA-SCA Local 30111 in Canada.

Last month, Microsoft’s gaming division—now rebranded as XBOX—announced 3,200 planned job reductions across XBOX, with the first phase of layoffs scheduled to impact 1,600 XBOX workers, including hundreds of union members, in early September. CWA represents nearly 4,000 video game workers at XBOX throughout the U.S. and Canada.

As a result, CWA members and gamers alike have engaged in unprecedented resistance in response to Microsoft’s unilateral actions. Last month, after a press conference where XBOX workers demanded layoff protections, over 500 workers and allies rallied at studio locations across the U.S. and Canada. XBOX fans also posted on Microsoft’s official fan feedback website to call out the layoffs, garnering over 4,000 upvotes and nearly 900 comments on the XBOX Player Voice forum. On July 15, CWA also filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging several labor law violations that require the employer to engage in decisional bargaining over discretionary layoffs.

“Like the people I read about in history books, I’m here to fight for fair contracts for all the unionized workers in the video game industry. I’m here to fight for all the game workers across an industry that has decided to put profits ahead of the workers who are the heart and soul of games,” said ZeniMax Senior User Research and CWA Local 6215 member Elisabeth Whyte, who was impacted by July’s layoffs. “My hope is that the gaming industry will one day return to a model that respects game workers, provides fair compensation, and doesn’t treat a game launch as an opportunity to downsize or close studios.”

Watch the livestreamed rallies on UVW-CWA’s Twitch.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.