Following three separate rounds of Layoffs at CD Projekt Red over the summer, a new union has been formed in Poland. Związek Pracowników Branży Gier, or Polish Gamedev Workers Union was formed with the mission structure of of representing “all professions and people working in the game development sector in Poland.”
This organization was formed by two still-employed members of CD Projekt Red, gameplay programmer Lev Ki, and gameplay QA analyst Paweł Myszka. According to the union’s website, the group aims to not only protect developers but also employees in marketing, publishing, and operations, along with anybody else working in game development in the Polish gaming industry. The Polish Gamedev Workers Union is in turn part of the larger recognized OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza, or Polish Trade Union Workers Initiative
Membership in this union is open to anybody from full-time employees to contractors, provided their contracts or employment agreements of Polish in nature. This means that CD Projekt Red members who want membership must be employed by CD Projekt S.A. with a Polish contract. This means that CD Projekts Vancouver studio, as well as their newly formed Boston Studio most likely do not qualify.
An FAQ on the union website makes clear that the discussion of unionizing began back in July when CD Projekt stated their intent to lay off 9%, around 100 people, from the company by 2024. This was followed by the termination of 29 people from the recently acquired The Molasses Flood followed by an additional 30 members from the Gwent development studio.
A statement from the group, it was said:
This event created a tremendous amount of stress and insecurity, affecting our mental health and leading to the creation of this union in response,” the union wrote. “Having a union means having more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis.
We believe that the mass layoffs are a danger to the gamedev industry and we believe that unionising is a way for us to preserve the industry’s potential.
News of this union formation follows closely behind the announcement that another Polish Studio Swedish developer Avalanche Studio, the developer behind the Just Cause series, will also be unionizing following similar layoffs at their company. Given the sheer number of layoffs in the past month, it would not be surprising to see more efforts to unionize, a topic of conversation that has been part of the industry for the past decade and more with little in the way of effective efforts to do so until recent.
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