Members of the ZeniMax Workers United union – which is made up of more than 300 quality assurance workers across ZeniMax Studios – has “overwhelmingly” voted to authorise union leadership to call for a strike if no resolution is reached following two years of unsuccessful contract negotiations with Microsoft.
ZeniMax Workers United, which is part of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), became the first union ever to be voluntarily recognised by Microsoft in 2023. At the time, members – who’ve worked on the likes of Fallout, Starfield, and Doom – said they’d push to end sudden periods of crunch, unfair pay, and a lack of growth opportunities within the company.
But two years on, ZeniMax Workers United says it’s still to successfully negotiate a first contract. According to the union, its bargaining committee has so far failed to reach an agreement with Microsoft over “better wages, workplace improvements, and key concerns, including a lack of remote work options and the company’s replacement of in-house quality assurance work with outsourced labour without notifying the union.”
Last December saw union members in Maryland and Texas stage a one-day walkout amid concerns around Microsoft’s outsourcing and its return-to-office policies, and the CWA additionally filed an unfair labour practice charge against Microsoft for unilaterally outsourcing work. However, that action could potentially escalate now more than 94 percent of ZeniMax Workers United members have voted to authorise union leadership to call for a strike if contract negotiations fail to reach a resolution.
“Paying your employees a liveable wage as a multi-trillion dollar company is the least they could be doing,” union member and associate QA tester Aubrey Litchfield said in an statement companying today’s news. “However when addressed at the bargaining table, Microsoft acts as though we’re asking for too much. Our in-house contractors have been working on minimal wages with no benefits, including no paid sick time. Workers are choosing not to start families because of the uncertainty of finances. We’ve released multiple titles while working fully remote. When will enough be enough?”.
“Underpayment and costly [return-to-office] initiatives have caused many of us to put our lives on pause,” union member and senior QA tester Zachary Armstrong added, “because our income does not match even the rising cost of living in the cities where ZeniMax insists we live and work to maintain employment… If Microsoft and ZeniMax continue to demonstrate at the bargaining table that they’re unwilling to pay us fair wages for the value our labour provides to our games, we’ll be showing them just how valuable our labour is.”
In a statement provided to The Verge in response to today’s union announcement, Microsoft spokesperson Delaney Simmons insisted the company was “deeply committed to reaching a fair and equitable resolution that acknowledges the teams’ contributions.” Simmons also claimed “substantial progress” had been made over the course of the negotiations, and that “tentative agreements [had been reached] on a majority of the topics at the table”.
“We have presented a package proposal that we believe is fair,” Simmons continued. “If accepted it would result in immediate compensation increases, even more robust benefits and is in alignment to the company’s hybrid model of three days in office. We look forward to continuing this progress during negotiations.”
ZeniMax Workers United is just one of an increasing number of video game unions successfully established in the last few years, with workers at the likes of Activision, Blizzard, and Sega also now represented by unions. Additionally, last month saw the CWA announce the industry-wide United Videogame Workers – a direct-join union open to all freelance or full-time video game industry workers in the US or Canada.