CD Projekt devs unionize after series of layoffs to achieve more security and "stronger voice in times of crisis"
CD Projekt workers have decided to unionize in the wake of several waves of job cuts that happened at the company this year. They joined forces with fellow developers from other Polish companies to improve employment conditions.
The group of game developers at CD Projekt and other game companies formed the Polish Gamedev Workers Union (via The Gamer), which will be an independent part of the larger union, OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza (Polish Trade Union Workers Initiative).
As the PGWU says in its FAQ, the workers started talking about unionizing after CD Projekt laid off 9% of its staff, or around 100 people, earlier this year. Prior to this, the company also decided to cut the remaining GWENT developers.
“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 message reads. “Having a union means having more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis.”
“We believe that the mass lay-offs are a danger to the gamedev industry and we believe that unionizing is a way for us to preserve the industry’s potential.”
Here are the union’s goals, according to its manifesto:
- Creating games in a stable, fair, diverse, and healthy environment;
- Ensuring job security, fair treatment, and transparency within Polish game companies;
- Representing workers from all gamedev professions, including development, marketing, publishing, and back-office;
- Establishing equal communication with employers (“Our goal is not to start a fight, but to have a dialogue”);
- Working as a democratic structure, where members will vote for decisions and take an active part in forming the union’s policy.
The PGWU currently plans to gather more people from different Polish game companies. It also reached out to CD Projekt’s board, but is yet to receive an official response. As the union’s founders told CD-Action, they have “submitted all the documents to the legal department, everything is formally organized.”
