It’s a big day for the labour movement in the games industry, as 241 Bethesda staffers have formed a union.
Yesterday evening, Bethesda Game Studios workers announced it had formed a union under the Communication Workers of America (CWA), making it the first studio to fully do so since being acquired by Microsoft. Bethesda Montreal filed for unionisation last month, and QA workers at Zenimax, Bethesda’s parent company, did the same in 2023, but with the Dallas, Rockville, and Austin sites forming this union, the entirety of US-based Bethesda studios have now unionised. It’s also the first “wall-to-wall” union at a Microsoft video game studio, as of the 241 workers that have unionised, there are members “including artists, engineers, programmers and designers have either signed a union authorization card or indicated that they wanted union representation.”
In a statement, senior system designer and member of the CWA Mandi Parker said, “We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry. It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job. We’re thrilled to get down to brass tacks and win a fair contract, proving that our unity is a source of real power to positively shape our working conditions, our lives, and the company as a whole.”
Important to note is that Microsoft has recognised the union, so the next steps will be discussions between the two. This is a really big step forward for the labour movement in the games industry, particularly with what’s been happening over the past year. At the start of the year, Microsoft laid off almost 2000 workers across its games division, and back in May it shut down Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, Redfall developer Arkane Austin, alongside Alpha Dog Games and Roundhouse Games, all of which fell under the Bethesda umbrella. Hopefully this newly formed union is another big step for other larger studios too.
