Video Game Workers Vote to Authorize Strike at Microsoft

Ahead of two-year bargaining milestone with Microsoft, CWA-represented quality assurance testers at ZeniMax Media prepare for national strike

NATIONWIDE – A bargaining unit of hundreds of video game workers at Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax Media—represented by Communications Workers of America Locals 2100, 2108, and 6215 (ZeniMax Workers United-CWA)—has overwhelmingly voted, by more than 94%, to authorize union leadership to call for a strike. ZeniMax Workers United-CWA and Microsoft have been negotiating for a first contract for nearly two years.

“We’re not afraid to use our union power to ensure that we can keep making great games,” said ZeniMax Workers United-CWA Local 2108 Member and Senior QA Tester Skylar Hinnant. “All of us want to be working. We hope that Microsoft will allow us to do so with dignity and fairness to all by securing a first contract with our union.”

Members of the ZeniMax Workers United-CWA bargaining committee are continuing to take a stand at the table 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 labor without notifying the union. Before a series of nationwide member rallies, including when ZWU-CWA members walked off the job in Maryland and Texas on a one-day work stoppage, CWA filed an unfair labor practice charge against Microsoft for unilaterally outsourcing work.

“Underpayment and costly RTO initiatives have caused many of us to put our lives on pause 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,” said ZeniMax Workers United-CWA Local 6215 Member and Senior QA Tester Zachary Armstrong. “None of us wishes it had come to this, but if Microsoft and ZeniMax continue to demonstrate at the bargaining table that they’re unwilling to pay us fair wages for the value our labor provides to our games, we’ll be showing them just how valuable our labor is.”

“Despite being one of the world’s largest corporations, we’ve had to continuously fight for what should be bare minimum. Paying your employees a livable wage as a multi-trillion dollar company is the least they could be doing; however when addressed at the bargaining table, Microsoft acts as though we’re asking for too much,” said ZeniMax Workers United-CWA Local 2108 Member and Associate QA Tester Aubrey Litchfield. “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?”

In January 2023, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA formed the first video game studio union at Microsoft, representing over 300 quality assurance workers in Maryland and Texas. ZeniMax Media is a video game production company known for its popular games such as Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, and more.

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About CODE-CWA

The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) is a network of worker-organizers and their staff working every single day to build the voice and power necessary to ensure the future of the tech, game, and digital industries in the United States and Canada. CODE-CWA is a project of the Communications Workers of America, which represents hundreds of thousands of workers throughout tech, media, telecom, and other industries who stand together to fight for justice on the job and in our communities.

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