Nintendo and staffing agency met with NLRB labor complaint

According to a Monday docket by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a worker accused Nintendo and Aston Carter, of violating National Labor Relations Act. Axios reported the first report.

Workers are guaranteed legal protection under the National Labor Relations Act. They have the right to organize and form their own union. Aston Carter was named in the complaint filed Monday in Washington. Aston Carter appears to be a staffing agency that Nintendo used to hire contract workers. The unnamed worker alleges that Nintendo and Aston Carter engaged in “concerted activities,” like retaliation toward, firing, refusing to hire, or disciplining organizing workers; “coercive actions,” like surveillance of those workers; and “coercive statements,” such as threats or promises of benefits. This law, known as the National Labor Relations Act of 1985, is designed to safeguard workers from unjust labor practices related to organizing efforts.

Monday marked the filing of the lawsuit. Details included in these documents were not immediately available to the public — just the public docket. Nintendo has not responded to Polygon’s request for comment.

Nintendo of America (Nikon of America) is a Japanese subsidiary of the Japanese company Nintendo. It’s located in Redmond Washington. A Corporate Responsibility report released in 2021 shows that Nintendo, as a company, has 27 subsidiaries with more than 6,500 workers. Nintendo, like other videogame companies, sometimes depends on contract labor to develop certain positions.

This lawsuit joins the growing list of video-game companies being accused of labor abuses. Currently, the NLRB is pursuing a labor dispute with Activision Blizzard’s leadership and its quality assurance (QA), workers at Raven Software. Raven Software QA workers have announced that they will unionize. The employees are calling themselves Game Workers Alliance and are awaiting a procedure decision from NLRB to determine if there is a formal ballot to unite.

Elsewhere at Activision Blizzard, hundreds of workers walked out of work in 2021 following a report from the Wall Street Journal that detailed the extent of Kotick’s knowledge of employee misconduct.

This lawsuit against the NLRB comes at a time videogame workers are pushing for unionization. In the last year Beast BreakerVodeo Games was the first North American gaming studio union to be certified after it was recognized by management. In 2020, contracted game writers for Voltage Entertainment went on strike, and won, after 21 days without official union recognition — a first for the video game industry. The unions for the board games sector were formed by United Paizo Workers in 2021 and Cards Against Humanity Workers United in 2020.