Canadian QA testers organize after return-to-office order piles on cost

One organizer told Polygon that Keywords Studios’ quality assurance employees, who are clients of BioWare were inspired to form a union due to a back-to-office directive which would have resulted in hundreds of dollars of commute expenses for workers making the minimum wage.

Keywords Studios was informed last week by the Alberta Canada Labour Relations Board that Edmonton QA employees had joined the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union (Local No. Their collective bargaining agent is to be named as 401. Tuesday, May 3 is the deadline for their employer to file any objections to the union’s formation. In the event that there are no objections, an election should be set within two weeks. If 51% of Keywords testers vote Yes, then they will start bargaining for a contract.

Keywords is the second North American video game developer to organize workers into a collective bargaining group. On Friday, 21 Raven Software QA workers in Wisconsin began to vote on the formation of a union known as Game Workers Alliance. These votes will be tallied in May. 23.

Keywords Studios was founded in Ireland in 1998 and has more than 20 locations worldwide. Keywords Studios in Edmonton is managed by the company’s British Columbia office. Keywords offers technical services for audio, art, game development, localization and quality control, but it does not create or publish any games. BioWare, owned by Electronic Arts since 2007, is among several AAA studios and publishers in the company’s clientele.

One of Keywords’ organizers, who asked not to be identified as “our management doesn’t know who’s involved with the effort at this point,” said that their vote could involve between 15 and 20 employees, pending a Labour Board review of eligible positions. Regardless, this organizer is “heavily confident that we will achieve a union. This should not be a problem. [vote threshold].”

The organizer said that the Raven workers’ actions, well publicized in the games press, were somewhat an inspiration, mainly in showing them that it was possible to take action. They claimed that the real reason they started a union was because of low wages and a return to work policy which will increase monthly parking fees as well as other costs for commuting, but still pay them the same salary.

“Our entry level testers start at minimum wage,” which in Alberta is CA$15 an hour. “A one-bedroom apartment is about $1,000 here in Edmonton. The organizer estimated that their coworkers earn between $950 to $970 per paycheck and were paid twice monthly.

According to organizers workers in other areas have had more flexibility.

“While our studio counterparts over at BioWare, they’re getting a little more of a hybrid model, flex hours, or permanent work-from-home options, it wasn’t really being afforded to us,” the organizer said. “So, some of our members felt that maybe we can have a little more of a conversation about this.”

Their estimates were that monthly parking in public places, for which employees are required to pay, costs $250-$350. “That’s before you’re buying yourself groceries and all the other expenses,” they said. Since the COVID-19 epidemic, which wiped out all offices and left many people without work in spring 2020, workers had been able to avoid these commute costs.

The organizer said they have worked for Keywords for two years and gotten a raise to $16.50 an hour, but they, like most of the workers who would vote on a union, started their testing job during the pandemic and have not gone into BioWare’s office to work alongside its developers. Keywords QA Edmonton has been involved in a number of projects over the last two years. Mass EffectLegendary EditionLast May’s launch of, along with the Legacy of the Sith expansion, were both launched. Star Wars: The Old Republic This February. An organizer indicated that Keywords QA workers were currently working on Dragon Age 2.

“Many of our individuals have things like student loans,” they said. “Just like down in the United States, post-secondary education is not free up here, either.” They said most of their colleagues had four-year university degrees, and those that didn’t likely had studied at a technical college. It is a prominent public university located in Edmonton that serves as a gateway to the tech sector, which includes games development.

“It really resonated with a lot of our members that we are viewed as unskilled labor — minimum wage, you get to sit around and play video games all day, right?” the organizer said. “But I think the reality that most people don’t understand is how highly technical the QA industry is, and a lot of these individuals who are working on our team, these are people who are coming out of university with computer science degrees and just trying to get started in the industry.

“They’re highly talented individuals that are creating immense wealth for their employer, at the expense of themselves,” they added.