Sega of America employees want to unionize

I think it’s insane how in the US unions are treated like vermin. Over here in the UK there are rules and regulations that allow unions to run without issue.

Basically, terrible work practises and environments in the US are the problem, not unions. If you treated people better, you wouldn’t have to fear them unionising and trying to regulate for you.

Also, I was going to make that AEGIS joke soon as I saw name but they ninja’d me before this thread even existed

 

I don't want to get in too deep, but there are many corporations that have suffered at the hands of out-of-control unions. Look no further than our American auto companies at the mercy of the UAW. The unions aren't exactly innocent. The mob can kill the golden goose which employees the very people they claim to be protecting.

Some unions, like some home owners associations, are decent. And likewise, some should be put out of their misery.

My take? I worry for Sega here. I worry that too many young punks will make too many over-the-top demands that will make it difficult for Sega of America to function effectively. Call me skeptical, because I am. I've seem this story play out before, and there's no guarantee of a happy ending for anyone involved.

 

That's an incredibly bad faith read on people who just want to be treated better.

I'm happy this is happening for them, it should be something that happens for more companies in the entertainment industry. Don't let corporations run you dry, get the pay and benefits you deserve.

 

Terrific news! I hope everything will work out well for them

 

Respectfully, conditions in the entertainment industry are terrible for the majority of entertainment employees. There are a few good jobs with some decent treatment/benefits, but they are rare and often the prestige/opportunity is treated as the benefit. It has only gotten much worse over time despite the overall near exponential growth of gaming in particular. We are finally seeing some pushback on it in the past 2 years, but there's a long way to go. I consider myself very lucky to work for a company that at least pays well and offers a contract position with good flexibility, but my exact position still has very few rights. I'm simply lucky that it isn't life destroying at this exact moment, and the efforts from unionization in other parts of the industry have helped us gain what benefits we've gotten so far.

Unionization is badly needed in the entire gaming industry, it is an extremely hostile one to workers now almost entirely across the board. And yes, it will shake up how some titles are produced, but so too will doing nothing. AAA content has taken major quality hits in the past years because of some of these issues, including extreme crunch among others.

 

A lot of smaller companies don't have a whole roster of games. They put out one game at a time, once in a while. If they don't get it done, they can't make any money, and they'll quickly go bust. In those companies, I can understand the need to ask people to work long hours, or maybe not be able to afford to pay the kind of money some may expect up-front.

For larger firms that have multiple revenue streams, things are a little different. And I am not saying a union is absolutely a horrible idea that will positively not work out. Unions can resolve terrible work conditions. I don't deny that, and I would never want to just get rid of them all. But something about the tech industry unions generally, at least on the outside looking in, seem to make some rather outrageous demands.

 

Such as? Genuinely curious.

 

This is a very slippery slope I'm on. I don't want to get too far away from the primary point of the topic. But I'll indulge this one time.

Google and Amazon both have had to deal with union walkouts over defense contracting in the past couple years. They make a buttload of money on these. It's good for their business. I feel like anyone who doesn't want to work on those kinds of contracts can work on something else within their company. But the members don't want the company dealing in warfare, so they tried to force them out of securing these contracts. (And my memory is fuzzy, but I believe they succeeded in the case of Amazon.) I think that's BS, and those employees should leave the company and work elsewhere if they feel that strongly about it. But instead of thinking about everyone else, these people chose only to think about only themselves and their ideology.

Just my view. Nobody has to agree. But there are MANY more just like this due to unions that don't appear to have the well-being of the COMPANY at heart. A good union-company relationship strikes a good balance. The example I gave you is not a good balance at all.

I intend to bow out of the discussion, at least from this angle. But still feel free to respond. I'll still read it.

 

I see, so the angle here is that a company's profits should come first over the personal stance or well-being of the people within them. That's... not a good defense against unions. At all.

Companies aren't people. They don't have rights. If you're failing the people who work at these companies, then the company's motivations are corrupted. And if a majority of people in a company don't want where they work to fund warfare, then maybe they shouldn't. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable statement. Especially since it's. You know. War.

 

"Defense contracting" reasoning is news to me, but whatever. I'll dig into that later on my own time. Thanks for sharing!

 

Hopefully it won't go the way of Disney...

 

False.

 

That is not the airtight defense you think it is.

 

Considering the early Sonic game cast was cut for being unionized (and thus more expensive) I'm really curious to see how this pans out.
If disaster strikes, I won't be terribly surprised, but my best wishes to SoA staff regardless.

 

A system made to benefit executive power and constrain workers really isn't the 'gotcha' you think it is. Pretending a machine made for monetary gain has the same rights as a living, breathing person isn't the moral high ground you think it is, either.

I'm not really gonna keep this going, btw. I'm just happy people are getting the support they need and deserve. I'll leave it at that.

 

I respect the majority of users here, and I said what I said about entertainment industry jobs because of personal experience (I try not to talk about the company I actually work for because of privacy reasons, so please don't push that), but I would also ask that we don't let this thread deviate into the usual political mudslinging that spews across the rest of the internet. The gaming industry is a unique entity with unique problems that will need to be addressed for long term stability. At least attempting to negotiate better workers rights is a real necessity, union or not. And if unionization is their best tool to do so? I'm willing to support that.

Sega is still a massive publisher. I've talked with people who worked there over the years, and came close to doing it myself once a few years back, including conversing with some major former project developers during my networking years. Their conditions are not the worst in the industry, but they have often been far from ideal and it has directly impacted of numerous titles on both sides of the pacific. Can a union become corrupt and make unreasonable demands? Yes. But right now as a whole the AAA gaming industry is tilted far, far too much in favor of the publisher and anyone with even the tiniest experience in it sees this. It's not exactly a well kept secret. A few indie studios can do well on their own, but I'm not here making the argument that every tiny indie dev needs a union either.

Unionization is not going to magically make your games double in price, or sink every big publisher. If anything, it leverages the ability to better distribute work loads that lead to more consistent product quality. If it slows down some AAA titles (which it really does not have to)? That's not a bad thing so long as the end result turns well, and a happier work force is more likely to be the kind of passionate, dedicated work force the industry needs to make those all time favorite cult classics we rave about. Crunch culture is rarely ever positive for the medium.

 

The 'Go Five Seconds Without Putting Words into People's Mouths' Challenge (Impossible):

 

If you decide to use a legal notion as a zinger against a literal truth (that corporations are not people but rather structures run by people), I don't know what else you should expect as a response.

 

I personally disagree here. If you care about the company you work at and wish to stay at it long-term, walking out instead of trying to work with them is more harmful in the long-term. Nobody wins there: the company loses good people, the workers are still knowledgeable that a large entity is working with the military, and it encourages the current working culture of job hopping (which has had awful effects on the working environment imo). You aren't fixing anything, you're ignoring the problem.

Regardless, unions can be bad (there's plenty of examples out there), but I don't think this is a good example. This is how unions should work. If you disagree with the direction your company is going in, you need to be able to communicate with the leaders. And a union is much harder to ignore than a few hundred individuals. You're more likely to ignore them because it's just noise at a certain point.