Union organizers from the games industry met with President Biden

The White House was able to witness the unionization of the games industry on Thursday. That’s where Alex Speidel, one of the lead organizers from the United Paizo Workers met with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and secretary of labor Marty Walsh inside the Oval Office. Official photos confirmed the meeting. on the President’s Twitter account.

Speidel and members of Titmouse Productions were present in the Oval Office.Legend of Vox Machina(see below), are organized under IATSE. Chris Smalls of Amazon Labor Union, was also present. Smalls, the most prominent labor leader, was present at the event and was requested by Senator Bernie Sanders, its Chairman, to testify in front of the Senate Budget Committee.

“This is not a left or right thing,” said Smalls, speaking about the right to unionize without illegal interference from management. “This is a working-class issue, and it’s the workers at the bottom that make these corporations go.”

Sanders took the opportunity to slam what he called Amazon’s union-busting activity. “Amazon has done everything possible — legal and illegal — to defeat union organizing efforts,” he said.

While workers at Amazon distribution centers around the country have had a difficult time organizing their workplaces, workers at Paizo had much smoother sailing on their way to voluntary recognition — that is, to being formally recognized as a collective bargaining unit by Paizo management. Speidel said that this was possible thanks to a small group of freelancer writers who had stopped accepting work.

According to a news release issued by the Paizo Workers, Speidel shared with President Biden how those freelancers “began to refuse assignments from the company in solidarity with the workers’ request for voluntary recognition of their union.” That collective action, Speidel said, was key in bolstering the full-time workers’ position.

“Being able to discuss CWA’s campaign to organize game and tech workers, and to share the incredible work being done by the United Paizo Workers and our team of freelance writers, was truly an honor,” Speidel said in that news release. “It is my hope that the administration continues their support of workers who are organizing to join unions in all industries, and that we are able to take this momentum back to CWA to continue the CODE-CWA campaign. Every worker deserves a union!”

Co-founder and co-founder Emma Kinema of Game Workers Unite (a grassroots union working to unionize video games), created CODE CWA in 2020. Ironically, it’s the workers at a company best known for its pen-and-paper role-playing games like PathfinderAnd StarfinderThanks to them, the movement was a success. Raven Software, part Activision Blizzard’s Activision Blizzard subsidiary, has also been involved in unionization. Keywords Studios collaborates with BioWare to support quality assurance (QA).