French video game workers pressed the pause button on Thursday during the first ever range strike to cut conditions and lay off employees.
During the coronavirus lockdown, the fat year with higher sales has allowed you to make an extension of the wave of layoffs and studio closures.
The STJV Alliance calls for demonstrations in a group of cities around France, including Paris, Bordeaux in the southwest and Reins in the northwest.
The movement attracted other workers’ groups, even scattered abroad in a studio of the French giant Ubisoft in Barcelona, Spain.
“We expect a considerable turnout,” said Vincent Cambedouzou, STJV representative for the Paris office of Ubisoft.
Thousands of demonstrators are expected to be nationwide in France’s 12,000 to 15,000 players.
Organizers called for a halt to layoffs, better working conditions and transparency into business structure and finance.
“Someone has made terrible decisions and brings our industry into what it is now,” Cambedouzou said.
“Then they asked us to pick up the label.”
Previously rare labor conflicts have hit several major gaming industries in recent months.
About 1,000 Ubisoft workers protested in October to change the rules at work.
The Assassin's Creed maker has nearly 18,000 employees worldwide, of which 4,000 are in France.
Ubisoft will announce its financial results for the third quarter of its fiscal year on Thursday and has issued an earnings warning as its stock struggles after a series of impressive issuances and delays.
The struggling developer also saw a few days of strike without nodding, with the plan to withdraw 69 of 250 Parisian employees.
The manager told AFP they had reached an agreement that prioritized voluntary departures and restricted mandatoryness.
After other small studios went on strike, “the next step in logic is to have everyone mobilize at one time.”
Julien Pillot, an economist specializing in the cultural industry, said the global video game field has emerged from a long period of “creative, craftsmanship” to become “any other industry.”
He added that workers are “waking up from a hangover…realizing that they are working like anyone else.”
In addition to the industry’s economic hardship, unions hope to get attention in the sometimes toxic workplace.
STJV has published anonymous testimony from many employees in recent weeks, documenting the severe treatment and gender discrimination of different companies.
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