The Communications Workers of America (CWA) are set to launch an industry-wide union of video game workers in the U.S. and Canada at this year’s GDC. The United Videogame Workers-CWA (UVW-CWA) will bring together “video game artists, writers, designers, QA testers, programmers, freelancers and beyond to build worker power irrespective of studio and current job status”.
“The union’s mission is to not only build community and solidarity amongst video game workers, but also to build large-scale education campaigns about labor organizing in the video game industry,” say the CWA. “Their first issue campaign will be around layoffs – given the fact that 1 in 10 video game developers were laid off in 2024, many video game workers have been mobilized to organize. And now they can! Workers will be sharing around a petition to address the industry-wide layoffs and hope to gain widespread support while at GDC”.
If you’re attending GDC, you’ll be able to pick up a zine they’ve put together, which includes “UVW-CWA’s mission statement, FAQs, an op-ed on direct-join unionism from CODE-CWA Senior Campaign Lead Emma Kinema, and member quotes”. Otherwise, the zine will be available from the CODE-CWA’s website.
From the zine:
“We are going to draft a video game worker bill of rights, setting standards that have been glaringly absent from our craft for too long. It will address inequality in hiring, the pervasive reliance on crunch, healthcare for contractors, and protections against all manner of injustice. Armed with this bill, new organizers can activate with clarity of goal and action, cultivated by the shared knowledge of not only fellow game developers, but workers in the entire labor movement.”
Here’s our interview with an organiser on how the CWA work and help game unions happen.