A new union for gaming industry workers has been formed in Poland, prompted by developers at the popular The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt.
The union, which is open to all developers working with a Polish contract, is named "Polish Gamedev Workers Union."
It's affiliated with the OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza (Polish Trade Union Workers Initiative) and its principles and joining form can be found on the official website.
Listing its values as fairness, transparency, democracy, and adaptability, the union has also published a manifesto, which you can read below.
- We are workers of all professions in Polish gamedev with a common goal of creating games in a stable, fair, diverse, and healthy environment.
- Our mission as a union is to ensure job security, fair treatment, and transparency within our employer organizations.
- We intend to achieve that by mutual support, education, and establishing equal communication with the employers as a strong voice for the workers’ interests. Our goal is not to start a fight but to have a dialogue.
- We intend to organize and represent a wide range of workers from all gamedev professions, be it development, marketing, publishing, or back-office. If you work for a gamedev company, we welcome you, whatever your title is!
- We are a democratic structure, and we want our members to take an active part in forming the union’s policy by engaging in conversations and voting for decisions.
- Our approach is adaptive in the sense that we intend to improve based on data and feedback. It is especially important for us at the beginning since we’re still finding our way. What will never change is our dedication to representing workers’ interests.
- We are an independent section within OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza. Being part of a larger structure allows us to get their experience and support while staying independent with our goals and policies.
Membership requires the payment of a 16 PLN ($3.69) monthly fee. 6 PLN go to OZZ IP, while the rest is used to "create promotional materials, collaborate on long-term union policy, and fund training for Union members."
Membership is anonymous and members are free to decide whether to reveal their affiliation or not, on their own terms.
The founders of the organization mention that they started thinking about unionizing after the recent wave of layoffs that cost roughly 100 people at CD Projekt Red to lose their jobs.
This created a "tremendous amount of stress and insecurity" and the goal is to have "more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis."
They also believe that "mass lay-offs are a danger to the gamedev industry and we believe that unionizing is a way for us to preserve the industry’s potential."
Further goals are to make the employees' voices heard during the significant changes affecting CD Projekt and increase employment stability.
The union has already reached out to CD Projekt's board of Directors to establish a dialogue that it hopes will be "stable and reliable."
A trial period in which the union is legally formed but doesn't have all of its governing bodies in place will end in mid-December with a large statutory meeting.
While the union is open to workers at other studios besides CDP, workplace-specific benefits won't apply until a large enough group is established to create a commission in each workplace.
Considering that CD Projekt just announced the naming of two new joint CEOs, it'll be interesting to see how they'll work with this new union. We reached out to the studio to ask for insight into its stance and will let you know if we get any significant comments.
