Video game workers in Quebec, under the Game Workers Unite Montreal banner, are partnering with Canadian trade union Confédération des syndicats nat

Workers seek to alter the balance of power in Canadian video game industry

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2024-05-09 14:00:08

Video game workers in Quebec, under the Game Workers Unite Montreal banner, are partnering with Canadian trade union Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) in an effort to shape the industry for the better. Together, they’re launching a union drive to form a provincewide union for Quebec-based video game workers. Quebec is home to nearly 15,000 workers, according to GWU Montreal, at studios like Behaviour Interactive, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Games, Electronic Arts, and Gameloft, making it a hotbed for the industry and its workers.

Together, they’re hoping to make not just one or two studios a better place to work — but all of them. “The general public loves games and consumes them on a daily basis, but has no idea how games are made, or by who,” Marie, a game writer, told Polygon. (Marie requested to be identified by their first name only because their employer doesn’t know that they’re organizing.) “It’s an opportunity for us to take that fight, that work we’ve been doing for years, to a larger platform.”

Game Workers Unite has operated for years as a democratic workers’ organization, but was not itself a union. Now that’s changing: Under CSN, Game Workers Unite Montreal members (which span all of Quebec, not just Montreal) will have access to many more resources. Workers will join individual unions tied to studios, each of which will negotiate with their own employers, CSN president Caroline Senneville told Polygon.