14 ms·

Microsoft workers to form company’s first union in the U.S.

244 points by impish9208 4y ago

satvikpendem 4y ago
*Assuming the ATVI/MSFT merger goes through, which it might not. The title should really say Activision Blizzard's first union is formed in the US.
- coldpie 4y ago
  No, this news is about a group of Zenimax employees. Zenimax is already owned by Microsoft. This is not related to Ravensoft QA union under ABK that made the news earlier this year.
jbotdev 4y ago
https://archive.is/oy7YN https://archive.is/oy7YN
4ggr0 4y ago
I tink unions in tech should be established while the industry is still in the gold rush. Sure, tech salaries are very high currently and tech workers tend to have more freedom in their jobs, but who knows for how long this will persist. Better start building unions now, it's never too early for that.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Gold flowing and competition are what make salaries go up to the extent you're talking.
yakattak 4y ago
Game companies need this. It’s one of the “software engineering” adjacent subfields that is extremely exploited. The salaries are low, the work is stressful, crunch is high. The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job. This is good, I hope the employees at ActivisionBlizzard can finalize their union if they’re purchased by Microsoft.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  The Activision/Microsoft merger may get blocked by the FTC[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/08/us-agency-block-merger-microsoft-activision-blizzard-video-games https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/08/us-agency-bl...
- lettergram 4y ago
  Have you ever worked in a company with a union? Look what just happened to the railroad workers. The US government forced them back to work and gave everything to the companies. Unions are effectively a corporation running labor. So you go from working for the company to working for your union rep. They then pimp you out and get kick backs. Wanna leave your job for another company or role? Good luck, you drop in seniority and will have your hours and pay cut. When layoffs come, the highest rank in the union decides who gets cut. His golf buddies obviously keep their jobs. Then you end up like GE or Boeing in a zombie company. Poor management, poor senior engineers, and good, but underpaid low level engineers. That’s not to say you can’t collaborate and organize. Ive organized my coworkers to make changes before, no union involved.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    Or you end up like Europe. With long maternity leave, paid sick days, overtime pay etc.
    - maxehmookau 4y ago
      Posts about unions on HN always skew towards negativity because in the US, unions are seen as bad. (Well done corporate america for that PR coup!) They often can't see the benefits, which are often large and numerous.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        Unions in the US are bad, in large part because of laws written to force things that way. Unions in Europe work different, but we legally cannot have that type of union so there is no point in discussing how unions don't have to be bad.
lloydatkinson 4y ago
The last time they tried the majority of their testing people were fired.
VyseofArcadia 4y ago
At Zenimax, not Microsoft proper. Bit of a disingenuous headline.
habibur 4y ago
"MS workers" here are 300 QA testers from MS's game division. I was worried whether their core developers were unionizing or not. Not yet. Not even the game developers.
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  It's still a good start!
  - malfist 4y ago
    Got to start somewhere!
- skellera 4y ago
  Wouldn’t even say games division. They’re part of an acquired studio, Zenimax (parent company of Bethesda), that runs pretty independently. While the headline is technically correct, it’s obviously clickbaity. Saying Zenimax QA engineers are unionizing doesn’t get as many clicks.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  [flagged]
impish9208 4y ago
The most interesting bit, IMHO, is this: > In June, Microsoft said it was open to working with any labor unions that want to organize within its workforce, making it an outlier in the tech industry. Last year Amazon.com Inc. contested workers’ efforts to unionize. Microsoft has said it would support workers at Activision Blizzard Inc. who organized last year should its $75 billion deal for the “Call of Duty” developer close.
- gyulai 4y ago
  What else are they going to say in public? "Our plan is to engage in union-busting as much as we can legally get away with"? And what one company said is then compared to what another company actually did? Come on! This statement doesn't make MS an outlier, it's simply devoid of information content.
  - impish9208 4y ago
    Well, the president of CWA (the union) also praises them: > “Microsoft has lived up to its commitment to its workers and let them decide for themselves whether they want a union,” CWA President Chris Shelton said. “Other videogame and tech giants have made a conscious choice to attack, undermine, and demoralize their own employees when they join together to form a union.”
    - gyulai 4y ago
      ...there's an obvious zero-sum game involved when unions negotiate with companies. Think of other zero-sum games like negotiating a price. Have you ever asked a salesperson about a price and heard them say "..the highest I can possibly extract from you"? No? Have you ever heard a salesperson say "I'll get you a great deal!" Yes? Does that convince you that most salespeople are really big on altruism?
  - coldpie 4y ago
    > What else are they going to say in public? Microsoft recognizing the union instead of fighting tooth & nail to destroy it is genuinely novel behavior. They could refuse to recognize the union, or sue to invalidate the ballot, as many, many companies do: "Activision Blizzard did not respond to workers’ request for recognition of a union formed by quality assurance testers at Raven Software" https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/01/25/activision-blizzard-doesnt-respond-raven-software-union-recognition-request-by-workers-tuesday-deadline/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/01/25/activi... "The NLRB found Curaleaf violated federal labor law by refusing to recognize and bargain with workers there, but the company is appealing the decision. Curaleaf had initially challenged the result of the election, which the union won by one vote, but the labor board later ruled in UFCW’s favor." https://www.gmtoday.com/news/illinois/2022-saw-a-wave-of-new-unions-form-getting-to-the-bargaining-table-is-the/article_f5f5a0f0-8bd5-11ed-b22c-77dcad9195ea.html https://www.gmtoday.com/news/illinois/2022-saw-a-wave-of-new... "The decision ordered Starbucks subsidiary Siren Retail Corp. to negotiate with the new union at its Seattle Roastery restaurant... The company contested the union's victory because the government held an election by mail ballot rather than an in-person election. Starbucks plans to appeal the ruling." https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/starbucks-negotiate-with-union-in-seattle.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/... "Since the workers went public with their union and began to bargain, Trader Joe’s has cut hours of union employees under the guise of the "slow season," while at the same time hiring new workers and giving them full-time schedules." http://www.fightbacknews.org/2023/1/3/minneapolis-newly-organized-trader-joe-s-workers-rally-first-contract http://www.fightbacknews.org/2023/1/3/minneapolis-newly-orga...
giantg2 4y ago
There are times I wish I had a union working for tech in finance. Although it seems like a real contract would fix most of the issues without unions. These one page "we make the rules and can change them at any time" contracts are bogus. There's no accountability, no fairness. Things become arbitrary. There's no accountability when the company violates it's own policies.
- mattficke 4y ago
  > Although it seems like a real contract would fix most of the issues without unions. It’s hard to disentangle these, unions are effectively the only way for non-executive[0] employees (in the US) to get an employment contract that isn’t one-sided in favor of the employer. The primary function of a union is to obtain a contract. [0] I highly recommend reading the “Executive Severance Plan” section of any publicly traded tech company’s SEC filings, they are fascinating.
  - surement 4y ago
    > unions are effectively the only way for non-executive[0] employees (in the US) to get an employment contract that isn’t one-sided in favor of the employer If they were actually one-sided then no employees would sign them. It's not like there are no alternatives to finance tech.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      But are there good alternatives? I've become cynical. Every job seems like it's the same shit with the same problems and there isn't anything better.
    - mattficke 4y ago
      I’m referring to the employment agreements that are in practice signed by basically everyone who works for a tech company (among other industries). Commonly includes provisions such as intellectual property assignment, non-solicitation, non-disclosure, non-disparagement, and occasionally non-compete (outside of California). These all protect the employer, it’s uncommon for anything in the agreement to protect the employee.
trashtester 4y ago
The 70s are back. We're approaching a period of strong unions, huge labor conflicts and eventually rampant inflation. At least in Europe. I've been thinking that the USA would be affected less than Europe, due to weak unions in most sectors, but it's certainly possible for unions to form.
- Quarrelsome 4y ago
  I feel like this implication you're positing where unions and labour conflicts can only result in "rampant inflation" is untested.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Which may not be surprising as high inflation discourages saving, meaning that people are more likely to buy the things they want now to not have to pay much more later, which results in businesses increasing production to fill the increased demand, requiring more labour, and thus labour finds itself in a stronger position. As the only power unions wield is the threat of stoppage of service, the workers have to be in a strong enough financial position to be able to execute on that – to be able to live without an income for months, if not years – in order to make it a credible threat. This is why unions are typically only found in high paying professions, but during periods where the general labour pool grows stronger then that expands.
    - Quarrelsome 4y ago
      > If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Indeed, I think we could argue inflation is a cause of unionisation as opposed to our OP's position where it is implied that unionisation leads to inflation.
    - trashtester 4y ago
      > to be able to live without an income for months, if not years – in order to make it a credible threat. That depends on what service they represent. Those who provide critical services (garbage removal, truck drivers, police, utilities, healthcare, grocery store workers) may make their absence felt very quickly. Also, anyone able to block a key element in a longer supply chain can cause a lot of damage quickly. It's all about the ability to completely paralyze access to something essential. Let's say every employee at every data center in the US were striking belonged to the same union, and all went on strike at the same time, shutting down all hardware and staying on site to prevent anyone from turning it back on. The effect would be instant and catastrophic. If there was no way to bring them back, society would collapse in days or hours. Most likely, the police would be used against them (like it was against factory workers in the early 1900s). It's all about how coordinated, ruthless and willing to risk ignoring the wrath of the employers and government the unions are, as well as how much support they have from the general population. Not that I'm expecting something this extreme anytime soon. It's more of an illustation of how powerful a strike can be, if taken to he maximum. Since around WW2, strikes have become more of a ritualistic dance, with rules for how far to take the conflict. Such rules sometimes change, though. And the willingness to escalate conflicts seem to be on the rise. > If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Anyway, I don't disagree that unionization and also union activity level (much of Europe is already unionized) is increased by inflation. My point is that the labor market conflicts can ALSO cause inflation. And if something is both the cause and the effect of something, then you have a positive feedback loop.
Eumenes 4y ago
QA in gaming industry sounds ripe for AI/ML solutions ... Automated testing already exists, but couple AI/ML for QA with free beta testers or super fans, and you can prob eliminate QA departments, or at least cut them down sizably. From what I know, the QA folks in gaming get paid crappy anyway, so its prob not a huge priority for MSFT. This is just some feel good press.
anon291 4y ago
I'm ambivalent about unions. In general, they sound like a good idea to me, but in practice in the USA, they seem only a step above the mob. For example, I was browsing /r/antiwork the other day and someone received a bill from their union after they chose to leave the job. The bill demanded the payment of $200 in union dues that were unpaid from their paychecks. The commenter did not have enough money to pay To put it bluntly... this is exploitation. The responses were that the poster had two options (1) pay the due or (2) never work in any industry for which this is the union (and some other unions may not want you if you're out of date with the other union). People have a right to work. No private organization, profit or non-profit, should be able to prevent you from doing that. I understand why a union may take a bit off the top of a paycheck, but to demand fixed sums after quitting under threat of never being able to work in that field again? That seems exploitative. We would never let a private for-profit business get away with threatening their employees as such. Moreover, according to other unions I've interacted with, they claim that if you don't follow union policy, they can 'expel' you from the union after you go through 'trials'. Typically, tnis is if you cross a picket line. Now, I think it's usually in one's best interest to strike if the union is striking. However, this is a free country. No one should be able to prevent you from working. No private organization should be able to put you on trial with the consequence being that, if you lose, you cannot work. While organizations can expel members, that should be the extent of their punishment. Working is a necessity to earn an income. To deprive someone of that because they're not part of your club is morally wrong. In my opinion, if we allow for closed shops, then unions should be obligated to represent any worker there, whether they have paid any dues or not. Union dues should primarily descend from paychecks. No worker should get a bill. No one should be able to be expelled from a profession simply for not following union labor policy (and realistically, there are only a handful of reasons a janitor ought to be expelled from the profession). Unions ought to be regulated like health insurance companies and be forced to advocate for anyone working in the field.

244 points by impish9208 4y ago

*Assuming the ATVI/MSFT merger goes through, which it might not. The title should really say Activision Blizzard's first union is formed in the US.

coldpie 4y ago
No, this news is about a group of Zenimax employees. Zenimax is already owned by Microsoft. This is not related to Ravensoft QA union under ABK that made the news earlier this year.

jbotdev 4y ago

https://archive.is/oy7YN https://archive.is/oy7YN

4ggr0 4y ago

I tink unions in tech should be established while the industry is still in the gold rush. Sure, tech salaries are very high currently and tech workers tend to have more freedom in their jobs, but who knows for how long this will persist. Better start building unions now, it's never too early for that.

robertlagrant 4y ago
Gold flowing and competition are what make salaries go up to the extent you're talking.

yakattak 4y ago

Game companies need this. It’s one of the “software engineering” adjacent subfields that is extremely exploited. The salaries are low, the work is stressful, crunch is high. The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job. This is good, I hope the employees at ActivisionBlizzard can finalize their union if they’re purchased by Microsoft.

AlexandrB 4y ago
The Activision/Microsoft merger may get blocked by the FTC[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/08/us-agency-block-merger-microsoft-activision-blizzard-video-games https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/08/us-agency-bl...
lettergram 4y ago
Have you ever worked in a company with a union? Look what just happened to the railroad workers. The US government forced them back to work and gave everything to the companies. Unions are effectively a corporation running labor. So you go from working for the company to working for your union rep. They then pimp you out and get kick backs. Wanna leave your job for another company or role? Good luck, you drop in seniority and will have your hours and pay cut. When layoffs come, the highest rank in the union decides who gets cut. His golf buddies obviously keep their jobs. Then you end up like GE or Boeing in a zombie company. Poor management, poor senior engineers, and good, but underpaid low level engineers. That’s not to say you can’t collaborate and organize. Ive organized my coworkers to make changes before, no union involved.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Or you end up like Europe. With long maternity leave, paid sick days, overtime pay etc.
  - maxehmookau 4y ago
    Posts about unions on HN always skew towards negativity because in the US, unions are seen as bad. (Well done corporate america for that PR coup!) They often can't see the benefits, which are often large and numerous.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Unions in the US are bad, in large part because of laws written to force things that way. Unions in Europe work different, but we legally cannot have that type of union so there is no point in discussing how unions don't have to be bad.

lloydatkinson 4y ago

The last time they tried the majority of their testing people were fired.

VyseofArcadia 4y ago

At Zenimax, not Microsoft proper. Bit of a disingenuous headline.

habibur 4y ago

"MS workers" here are 300 QA testers from MS's game division. I was worried whether their core developers were unionizing or not. Not yet. Not even the game developers.

bigbillheck 4y ago
It's still a good start!
- malfist 4y ago
  Got to start somewhere!
skellera 4y ago
Wouldn’t even say games division. They’re part of an acquired studio, Zenimax (parent company of Bethesda), that runs pretty independently. While the headline is technically correct, it’s obviously clickbaity. Saying Zenimax QA engineers are unionizing doesn’t get as many clicks.
adamsmith143 4y ago
[flagged]

impish9208 4y ago

The most interesting bit, IMHO, is this: > In June, Microsoft said it was open to working with any labor unions that want to organize within its workforce, making it an outlier in the tech industry. Last year Amazon.com Inc. contested workers’ efforts to unionize. Microsoft has said it would support workers at Activision Blizzard Inc. who organized last year should its $75 billion deal for the “Call of Duty” developer close.

gyulai 4y ago
What else are they going to say in public? "Our plan is to engage in union-busting as much as we can legally get away with"? And what one company said is then compared to what another company actually did? Come on! This statement doesn't make MS an outlier, it's simply devoid of information content.
- impish9208 4y ago
  Well, the president of CWA (the union) also praises them: > “Microsoft has lived up to its commitment to its workers and let them decide for themselves whether they want a union,” CWA President Chris Shelton said. “Other videogame and tech giants have made a conscious choice to attack, undermine, and demoralize their own employees when they join together to form a union.”
  - gyulai 4y ago
    ...there's an obvious zero-sum game involved when unions negotiate with companies. Think of other zero-sum games like negotiating a price. Have you ever asked a salesperson about a price and heard them say "..the highest I can possibly extract from you"? No? Have you ever heard a salesperson say "I'll get you a great deal!" Yes? Does that convince you that most salespeople are really big on altruism?
- coldpie 4y ago
  > What else are they going to say in public? Microsoft recognizing the union instead of fighting tooth & nail to destroy it is genuinely novel behavior. They could refuse to recognize the union, or sue to invalidate the ballot, as many, many companies do: "Activision Blizzard did not respond to workers’ request for recognition of a union formed by quality assurance testers at Raven Software" https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/01/25/activision-blizzard-doesnt-respond-raven-software-union-recognition-request-by-workers-tuesday-deadline/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/01/25/activi... "The NLRB found Curaleaf violated federal labor law by refusing to recognize and bargain with workers there, but the company is appealing the decision. Curaleaf had initially challenged the result of the election, which the union won by one vote, but the labor board later ruled in UFCW’s favor." https://www.gmtoday.com/news/illinois/2022-saw-a-wave-of-new-unions-form-getting-to-the-bargaining-table-is-the/article_f5f5a0f0-8bd5-11ed-b22c-77dcad9195ea.html https://www.gmtoday.com/news/illinois/2022-saw-a-wave-of-new... "The decision ordered Starbucks subsidiary Siren Retail Corp. to negotiate with the new union at its Seattle Roastery restaurant... The company contested the union's victory because the government held an election by mail ballot rather than an in-person election. Starbucks plans to appeal the ruling." https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/starbucks-negotiate-with-union-in-seattle.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/... "Since the workers went public with their union and began to bargain, Trader Joe’s has cut hours of union employees under the guise of the "slow season," while at the same time hiring new workers and giving them full-time schedules." http://www.fightbacknews.org/2023/1/3/minneapolis-newly-organized-trader-joe-s-workers-rally-first-contract http://www.fightbacknews.org/2023/1/3/minneapolis-newly-orga...

giantg2 4y ago

There are times I wish I had a union working for tech in finance. Although it seems like a real contract would fix most of the issues without unions. These one page "we make the rules and can change them at any time" contracts are bogus. There's no accountability, no fairness. Things become arbitrary. There's no accountability when the company violates it's own policies.

mattficke 4y ago
> Although it seems like a real contract would fix most of the issues without unions. It’s hard to disentangle these, unions are effectively the only way for non-executive[0] employees (in the US) to get an employment contract that isn’t one-sided in favor of the employer. The primary function of a union is to obtain a contract. [0] I highly recommend reading the “Executive Severance Plan” section of any publicly traded tech company’s SEC filings, they are fascinating.
- surement 4y ago
  > unions are effectively the only way for non-executive[0] employees (in the US) to get an employment contract that isn’t one-sided in favor of the employer If they were actually one-sided then no employees would sign them. It's not like there are no alternatives to finance tech.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    But are there good alternatives? I've become cynical. Every job seems like it's the same shit with the same problems and there isn't anything better.
  - mattficke 4y ago
    I’m referring to the employment agreements that are in practice signed by basically everyone who works for a tech company (among other industries). Commonly includes provisions such as intellectual property assignment, non-solicitation, non-disclosure, non-disparagement, and occasionally non-compete (outside of California). These all protect the employer, it’s uncommon for anything in the agreement to protect the employee.

trashtester 4y ago

The 70s are back. We're approaching a period of strong unions, huge labor conflicts and eventually rampant inflation. At least in Europe. I've been thinking that the USA would be affected less than Europe, due to weak unions in most sectors, but it's certainly possible for unions to form.

Quarrelsome 4y ago
I feel like this implication you're positing where unions and labour conflicts can only result in "rampant inflation" is untested.
- randomdata 4y ago
  If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Which may not be surprising as high inflation discourages saving, meaning that people are more likely to buy the things they want now to not have to pay much more later, which results in businesses increasing production to fill the increased demand, requiring more labour, and thus labour finds itself in a stronger position. As the only power unions wield is the threat of stoppage of service, the workers have to be in a strong enough financial position to be able to execute on that – to be able to live without an income for months, if not years – in order to make it a credible threat. This is why unions are typically only found in high paying professions, but during periods where the general labour pool grows stronger then that expands.
  - Quarrelsome 4y ago
    > If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Indeed, I think we could argue inflation is a cause of unionisation as opposed to our OP's position where it is implied that unionisation leads to inflation.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    > to be able to live without an income for months, if not years – in order to make it a credible threat. That depends on what service they represent. Those who provide critical services (garbage removal, truck drivers, police, utilities, healthcare, grocery store workers) may make their absence felt very quickly. Also, anyone able to block a key element in a longer supply chain can cause a lot of damage quickly. It's all about the ability to completely paralyze access to something essential. Let's say every employee at every data center in the US were striking belonged to the same union, and all went on strike at the same time, shutting down all hardware and staying on site to prevent anyone from turning it back on. The effect would be instant and catastrophic. If there was no way to bring them back, society would collapse in days or hours. Most likely, the police would be used against them (like it was against factory workers in the early 1900s). It's all about how coordinated, ruthless and willing to risk ignoring the wrath of the employers and government the unions are, as well as how much support they have from the general population. Not that I'm expecting something this extreme anytime soon. It's more of an illustation of how powerful a strike can be, if taken to he maximum. Since around WW2, strikes have become more of a ritualistic dance, with rules for how far to take the conflict. Such rules sometimes change, though. And the willingness to escalate conflicts seem to be on the rise. > If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Anyway, I don't disagree that unionization and also union activity level (much of Europe is already unionized) is increased by inflation. My point is that the labor market conflicts can ALSO cause inflation. And if something is both the cause and the effect of something, then you have a positive feedback loop.

Eumenes 4y ago

QA in gaming industry sounds ripe for AI/ML solutions ... Automated testing already exists, but couple AI/ML for QA with free beta testers or super fans, and you can prob eliminate QA departments, or at least cut them down sizably. From what I know, the QA folks in gaming get paid crappy anyway, so its prob not a huge priority for MSFT. This is just some feel good press.

anon291 4y ago

I'm ambivalent about unions. In general, they sound like a good idea to me, but in practice in the USA, they seem only a step above the mob. For example, I was browsing /r/antiwork the other day and someone received a bill from their union after they chose to leave the job. The bill demanded the payment of $200 in union dues that were unpaid from their paychecks. The commenter did not have enough money to pay To put it bluntly... this is exploitation. The responses were that the poster had two options (1) pay the due or (2) never work in any industry for which this is the union (and some other unions may not want you if you're out of date with the other union). People have a right to work. No private organization, profit or non-profit, should be able to prevent you from doing that. I understand why a union may take a bit off the top of a paycheck, but to demand fixed sums after quitting under threat of never being able to work in that field again? That seems exploitative. We would never let a private for-profit business get away with threatening their employees as such. Moreover, according to other unions I've interacted with, they claim that if you don't follow union policy, they can 'expel' you from the union after you go through 'trials'. Typically, tnis is if you cross a picket line. Now, I think it's usually in one's best interest to strike if the union is striking. However, this is a free country. No one should be able to prevent you from working. No private organization should be able to put you on trial with the consequence being that, if you lose, you cannot work. While organizations can expel members, that should be the extent of their punishment. Working is a necessity to earn an income. To deprive someone of that because they're not part of your club is morally wrong. In my opinion, if we allow for closed shops, then unions should be obligated to represent any worker there, whether they have paid any dues or not. Union dues should primarily descend from paychecks. No worker should get a bill. No one should be able to be expelled from a profession simply for not following union labor policy (and realistically, there are only a handful of reasons a janitor ought to be expelled from the profession). Unions ought to be regulated like health insurance companies and be forced to advocate for anyone working in the field.