Recently, Virtual Economy’s Amanda Farough sat down with Chrissy Fellmeth, animator Kelly Larkin, and game developer Andrew Buczacki to talk about the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees’ efforts to help game studios unionize. You can listen to the podcast version of this interview here.
For more on IATSE, you can visit their website, YouTube, and Twitch channels. Additionally, you can find more resources at GameWorkers.org and the GameWorkers.org LinkUp.
Amanda Farough for Virtual Economy
Today I am joined by the most excellent folks at IATSE [the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees]. We are talking unionization today, people. This is going to be kind of a 101 style conversation, really. What we want to do is just get the conversation rolling. We’ve had a lot of really horrible labor stories that have come out over the last couple of years especially, you all that have been listening to Virtual Economy for years know that we are no stranger to holding corporations accountable and making sure that we have difficult conversations. But it is time to step into a new world.
And that new world is going to require us to unionize. So today I am joined by three amazing people from IATSE. And we are talking with Chrissy Fellmeth, Kelly Larkin, and Andrew Buczacki. Welcome, all of you. How are you all doing today?
Chrissy Fellmeth
Thanks for having us. Doing great.
Kelly Larkin
Yeah, I’m doing really wonderful. It’s a beautiful day and I’m ready to talk about unionizing.
Virtual Economy
Yeah.
Fellmeth
Oh, yeah.
Andrew Buczacki
Feeling good. Let’s do this.
Virtual Economy
So we went out and we brought in some questions from our community. I’ve got some questions for you all today. This is table setting, because we’re going to go deeper at some point.
Fellmeth
That’d be sick.
Virtual Economy
We’re going to have these lovely folks back to have longer and deeper conversations. Maybe we’ll even do it in person at GDC. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Larkin
Ooh.
Virtual Economy
Ooh, unionization roundtable anyone? Hello.
Fellmeth
Yeah.
Larkin
Hell yeah.
Virtual Economy
Hello. I’m so here for it. Maybe we can make that happen next year. So to kick us off today, tell us a little bit about what IATSE does as an organization.
Fellmeth
So first off, I just want to explain what IATSE is. The IATSE, aka IATSE, aka the IA, is the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. We are the Entertainment Union. We represent entertainment workers in many different fields, from broadcast television to stage shows to trade shows like GDC. Shout out to Local 16 in San Francisco. And we also represent workers in animation. And more recently, we’ve started to work with folks who work in video games because we already have so many folks that we already represent, folks like Kelly here who work in crafts that also work in games.
Larkin
The Animation Guild represent.
Fellmeth
Yeah. Local 839.
Virtual Economy
Love it.
Fellmeth
So yeah, the IATSE is again, like I said, the entertainment union. And we are you and your coworkers coming together to establish standards and create a sustainable career in the entertainment field.
Virtual Economy
Beautiful. I love that. Is there anything else that anyone would like to add?
Larkin
Hmm.
Virtual Economy
All right. Rock on. One of the big questions that I know that I have is about why IATSE is interested in unionizing in the game industry.
Fellmeth
I think Kelly and Andrew can answer that one.
Larkin
For sure, I can speak for my personal experience as being a member of the Animation Guild. When I started out working in animation, I worked in a company that was not union. And I experienced a lot of things that happen on a daily basis to people who are in the gaming industry, right? Working overtime without pay. having these long arduous hours, having severe job instability.
And then when I ended up working at a union company, a lot of those issues kind of melted away in a sense. And even if there were issues, there was always a shop steward who would walk around the building and say, hey, how’s everything going? Like, do you have anything you want to let the union know? And ultimately, there was like this massive support that I had never experienced at a job before. And what that was is that me and all of my coworkers were watching each other’s backs with the help of the animation guild, with the help of IATSE, and we were able to advocate for ourselves in another way.
Now, the things that I do at my job are comparable to what people in the gaming industry are doing. So it is a very easy transition for IATSE to start working with gaming companies, since there is so much overlap. The work I do as an animator is already being done by people in the gaming industry. They’re animating just like me, and there is no reason why they shouldn’t have the same support and representation that we do in the Animation Guild.
Buczacki
And to answer the other part of your question of like, why us? Why the gaming industry? I’m in the industry myself. And it’s because we need it, right? The industry is kind of in a real tough spot right now.
I don’t need to cite the numbers. It’ll just make us all sad. But the working conditions are not great for various reasons. there are the things that Kelly was talking about, but essentially overworking people and not having access to benefits or having these sort of manipulative structures and systems in place that are that are unchecked because they are unregulated because we are not unionized.
And for the longest time, my experience is largely with AAA studios. and the answer is “go somewhere else.“ Find a company that fixes your current problems and hopefully their own set of problems is manageable to you so that you can find something that that you can tolerate.
Can you tolerate this company’s nonsense that you can no longer tolerate at your current company? Do they fix those problems? And that’s not sustainable or healthy. I wish I could be a career man who could work at one company for my entire career. And that’s just not the case because the companies control everything.
Virtual Economy
Ain’t that the case? And it’s something, you know, again, any listeners that have been with Virtual Economy for a long, long time know that this is something that we have been reporting on for the better part of two years. And prior to that, I was a business journalist. This was a part of my beat, talking about studio closures and layoffs and it’s never been this bad. What do folks need to know about the unionization process and how to get it started?
Fellmeth
That’s a great question. Step one is asking yourself if a union is for you. Do you believe that as an individual, you have the ability to make change at your workplace? If you don’t agree with that statement, then a great way to find a solution to that is to band together with your coworkers and demand the changes that you need to create a more sustainable future at the place that you’re working.
And one by one, as studios continue to organize, it creates a broader community of unionized studios that all feed into that and makes it so that people are able to continue to do the work that they studied so hard for, that they always dreamed of doing, that they worked at doing for several years, maybe even not several years, maybe you’re new to the industry, maybe this is your first job, but maybe you’ve also been working in it for 20 years, 30 years, you know, and you want to make sure that you can retire.
You want to make sure that you don’t have to decide whether you have to keep doing this work, or whether you can keep doing this work or whether you have to find something else.
That’s what creating a sustainable future and longevity in your career path is all about. And having the ability to negotiate with your employer helps facilitate that. You asked this question, and I took a fork in the road.
Virtual Economy
That’s okay, we do that a lot on this show, so don’t worry, you’re in good company.
Fellmeth
The first thing is connecting with yourself and determining whether or not that is the right option for you. The next step could be a series of events that unfold in whatever way you think is best. You could directly reach out to an organizer. You can reach out to me at the IATSE, contact a broader union and say, “I want to form a union at my company,” and we’ll get started figuring out a strategy with which to do that.
Or you can talk to a trusted coworker and say, “Hey, I think that maybe forming a union here is a good idea, what do you think?” Somebody that you’ve already got a pretty good feel about. And if they’re into it too, maybe they join you in that effort to continue to recruit new people to your effort. And then maybe at that point you contact an organizer and say we’ve got an assembled group of people who are willing to do the work to see this through and we need help to see it through to the finish.
But it’s up to you to determine at what point you decide it’s worth contacting an organizer. We’re here anytime. Whether you have one person, two people, 20 people, 100 people, we’re here to help and support, so we’re here to give you all the resources that we have to make sure that you win. But step one comes from you, and where it goes from there again is up to you.
I know that sounds really simple, which it’s not.
Virtual Economy
It seems like something that is just incredibly complicated to even get started. And I know for a lot of overworked folks that have been in the industry, whether it’s this is their first job, or they’ve been in the industry for 15, 20 years, everybody’s tired. Do we really have the time and energy to take on one more thing? But as it turns out, maybe that one more thing isn’t as complicated as you believe it to be.
Larkin
Absolutely.
Virtual Economy
So yeah, speak to it, Kelly.
Larkin
Oh, for sure. Ultimately, the way you start a union is by talking to your coworkers. As Chrissy said, it is a trusted conversation that preferably you shouldn’t be having in the office, just due to union busting tactics, which we can talk a little bit about later on.
Virtual Economy
Oh, we are going to get there for sure.
Larkin
Great. But a union is simply a collection of your peers who are going through the effort of organizing with you to demand a better workplace. So ultimately, when you are at the water cooler with your homies saying, man, I’m really tired. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. It’s time to turn that frustration into action. And that action is ultimately what is going to push everyone forward to create a union with IATSE.
Virtual Economy
Fantastic. Andrew, is there anything that you would like to add from your perspective?
Buczacki
Yeah, I think those are all great points. You don’t have to do all of the activism or all of the organizing by yourself. If there’s someone who likes having those conversations or likes printing out flyers? Find that person and have them print out the flyers. Find the thing that you’re good at doing in terms of organizing and do that part.
And then together as a collective, you are much stronger united than you are on your own. And finding that the thing that you can do to contribute to the overall goal is what you can contribute.
Virtual Economy
I love that. Everyone needs to take on the task that they’re best suited to in order to push this forward. And I love that because that actually was going to lead me into my next question, which is about what are some of the barriers that you have either experienced, that you’ve observed, or that you’ve gotten questions about when it comes to forming a union?
Fellmeth
I feel like Andrew’s got answers, yeah.
Buczacki
I’ll take this one. Yeah. I think ultimately the biggest barrier is misinformation and fear. I think those two are kind of the same but the fear stems from misinformation of what unionization means. We are an unregulated industry.
We do not have unions writ large. That’s starting to change, which is very wonderful. But I think of, I don’t know if we’re allowed to name drop here, but like Adam Conover, right? Adam Conover has his show, and he comes from a union family. He’s in the Writers Guild.
These are people who have known what unions are and what unions can provide. The tech sector doesn’t have that. There are no tech unions. So we are we are largely ignorant of the benefits it can provide, and we’ve probably soaked up some of the fear-mongering propaganda that “unions are bad” and “they’re going to make you pay more” and all this, that, and the other. Some of that sort of intrinsically sticks and without anyone it or us going out and saying, “Well what actually can a union do to give us clarity?” So when I started looking into unionization and figuring out what actually goes into forming one, it became a lot clearer that it is a fairly simple process.
The steps are very simple of have conversations, decide your priorities, figure these things out. And a lot of the fears that are there are either unfounded because they’re propaganda from companies that want you to not unionize, or they are things that you are currently already scared of. So, what do you have to lose? And the companies sort of stay in power by maintaining the status quo and making the friction to organizing so high that once you start peeling away those layers and realizing the beautiful simplicity of what it takes to organize… I find that that has opened up a lot of barriers for me.
Virtual Economy
I love that. Kelly, I’d love to hear from you, too, on this one.
Larkin
For sure. I am struggling to figure out what to say because Andrew just did such a good, incredible, articulate job addressing this question.
Virtual Economy
It was really beautiful. It’s true.
Buczacki
Thank you.
Larkin
Yeah. Ultimately, I do want to touch upon what Andrew was saying in regards to companies making it harder than it needs to be to unionize mostly because in the United States, which is an area I can speak to, we have [combat] a lot of propaganda and misinformation regarding what a union is, how it works, I think about that airline company that was like, you could pay your union dues, or you could buy the PlayStation 5. Which one are you going to choose? And it’s like, I don’t know, maybe I would like health insurance, even if I move between companies, right? Which is a benefit that I have at the Animation Guild.
If I work at multiple union studios, my health insurance carries over. So even if I’m unemployed, I still have health insurance. Imagine that. It feels so good, right?
Virtual Economy
Honestly, I’m sitting here. I’m imagining it. That’s a bright, beautiful world. Well, and I’m Canadian. I live in the United States these days.
Larkin
Oh.
Virtual Economy
I do. I do. I made a very interesting choice with my life and moved here in 2017 because, of course I did. Why not play life on nightmare mode? So as a Canadian, it’ll always be bizarre to me that the government just doesn’t pay for healthcare. But since we are beholden to the system that we are currently trapped in, in the United States, knowing that there could potentially be that option where you don’t have to go through COBRA. And for those international listeners, we’ve talked about COBRA before.
This is kind of the stopgap health insurance that you have to pay out the nose for. It is exceptionally expensive just to keep any kind of health care going and if you’re uninsured in the United States, it’s extremely dangerous not just for your health but for your bank account as well.
Larkin
For sure. I’d like to note that, due to the Writers Guild striking, our health insurance company actually provided six months of COBRA for free as a stopgap between those negotiations.
Virtual Economy
Huge!
Larkin
So this is just more evidence that collective action can lead to incredible results.
Virtual Economy
Absolutely. Like that’s so big. You know, it’s interesting because we have an international audience, you know, it’s whenever we have these very American-centric conversations around healthcare, the rest of the world’s like, y’all okay?
Larkin
No.
Fellmeth
No.
Virtual Economy
No. The answer is no.
Buczacki
No.
Virtual Economy
We are not okay over here. That’s why we’re trying to fix things, I promise. You know what I really want to talk about though? I’ve got to talk about union busting. We’ve got to talk about it, right? It’s something that we’ve covered a lot on Virtual Economy about the things that the larger studios did. Activision Blizzard was one of the most egregious, especially when they acquired, ironically, Proletariat, and did union busting there as well.
So, let’s talk about union busting. For a lot of folks that are interested in moving forward, this is one of those fears that they will be subject to further abuse and scrutiny and all of those really scary things that make it difficult to even do your job. So I’m going to open the floor. Whoever wants to start first, let’s start the conversation about union busting.
Fellmeth
So I’ll kick it off if you don’t mind.
Virtual Economy
Absolutely.
Fellmeth
So the one thing about union busting that I want everybody to know is that there are several things that your employer can do, and there’s several things that they can’t do under the National Labor Relations Act. I always call it TIPS, T-I-P-S, that’s Threats, Interrogations, Promises, and Surveillance. Those are all illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. They cannot threaten you with job loss. They can’t threaten to close your studio. And this is in response to you organizing.
So, if y’all didn’t do anything and your boss is like, “We’ve got to shut down the studio,” that’s not against the National Labor Relations Act. But if they say, “Y’all are going to unionize, you’re going to bankrupt us. You’re going to put us under.” Mind you, we haven’t even gotten to the negotiating table yet to ask for any sort of monetary information.
Virtual Economy
Exactly, which we’re going to get to really soon, because I want to have the conversation about negotiations and getting management to the table.
Fellmeth
Yeah, that’s tough. But you’re immediately claiming that we’re going to bankrupt you. We haven’t asked for a single cent yet. So, they can’t threaten you with job loss. They can’t threaten you with relocating your job overseas, or anything like that. They can’t threaten you as an individual with firing over your union vote or supporting the union.
They also cannot interrogate you about your union support. They can’t sit you down in an office and say, “How did you vote? Are you voting yes for your union? Are you talking with anybody on the organizing committee? Who else do you know that is a part of this effort?”
They can’t ask you these questions that is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. You also have what is called your Weingarten rights, which basically states that you are allowed to have your union representative with you in any disciplinary meeting.
If you are being interrogated about your union support and they are threatening you with job loss, you can cite your Weingarten rights and have your union representative with you in that meeting, and therefore we’d be there to back you up and make sure that nothing really bad will happen. So, they can’t interrogate you. They can’t promise you things. They can’t say, hey, Amanda, listen, if you don’t vote for this union, I’ll give you that raise. Hey, Amanda, I heard that you wanted that promotion, and I would have loved to give it to you, but now the union’s in the way.
Virtual Economy
Oh, damn.
Fellmeth
They try to get to you on an individual level because they know that they can affect you individually instead of collectively. When you’ve got the backup of other people that are a part of your union, then you’re more confident and less afraid.
But when you’re stuck in a meeting with your two bosses and the HR rep, and your supervisor, and they’re all looking at you saying, are you voting yes for your union? You feel a different pressure. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you are. It’s legal for you to lie to them. You can literally just say, oh, I’m totally voting “no,” just so you can get out of the room and then go vote “yes” anyway. But it is illegal for them to promise you things, interrogate you, threaten you. But the last one is surveillance.
They’re not allowed to spy on you. You form your union, and then your boss is like, “OK, we’re installing all of this software on your computer so that we can monitor what you’re doing and who you’re talking to all day.” Or you’re working on-site somewhere, and now they’ve got their HR rep sitting next to you. They just want to watch what you’re doing. Or they’ve got their manager, like your direct manager, watching over your department to see who you talk to. There’s somebody in the lunchroom spying on you. That is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.
But union busting can also take form in very legal ways. In New York State, I believe recently they’ve made it illegal to hold captive audience meetings. But that is not a federal law that is a New York State law. A captive audience meeting is basically your boss saying,
“Everybody has to come to a mandatory meeting. If you don’t show up, you’re fired.” And then they sit you down and they plead their case to you.
They say things like, “You’re breaking my heart. I built this from the ground up. I care about all of you. If you had just come to me and told me that something was wrong, I could have fixed it, but now I can’t because the union is in the way. I beg of you to end this madness. We’re at each other’s throats.”
Virtual Economy
Just thinking about that and being on the receiving end of that kind of emotional manipulation at scale, quite frankly, turns my stomach.
Fellmeth
It’s very difficult because I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve been in that meeting.
And if you are not informed, then it can be very convincing. And I’m not saying that the people who fall for it are stupid by any means. That’s not it whatsoever. It’s convincing for a reason. It’s highly effective.
Virtual Economy
…. it pulls on our heartstrings, right? And for the most part, all of us creatives, whatever disciplines we happen to be in, many of us are extremely compassionate people. We’re extremely empathetic people. And we just want to make, and we want to connect.
Fellmeth
Especially if that boss that’s pleading their case to you is your friend because you’re working at a small company and you go out to have beers with them on the weekend.
Virtual Economy
Exactly. 100%. Blurring of those lines is really, really challenging.
Fellmeth
But would they take a pay cut to keep you on the payroll? How deep is your friendship there?
Virtual Economy
That’s the real question.
Fellmeth
But part of what we do when we organize people is we do what’s called an inoculation.
It sounds weird. It’s like we’re not giving anybody a shot. We’re giving everybody an idea of what, like basically doing what I just did, which is giving everybody the idea of what your boss might do. And you straight up ask people, you say, what do you think our boss might do? “Oh, I think they’d lay everybody off.” Okay, well, they can’t do that under the National Labor Relations Act. They’re not allowed to threaten us with job loss. “Well, I think they would set everybody down and force us to listen.” Well, that’s a captive audience meeting, and we just have to be resilient because they don’t have our interests in mind. They have their interests in mind.
But if we make sure that everybody in our organizing unit, which is all of the eligible voters, are well inoculated against an anti-union campaign, that’s how we defeat it. That’s how we overcome. That’s how we beat it. If people aren’t well prepared or understanding of it, it could be quite convincing, and people will change their minds. And it’s not that once you change your mind, you’re excluded from being a part of the union. That is not the case whatsoever. If you vote no, you’re still going to be a part of the union if we win.
Virtual Economy
Yeah. That makes sense. And I think that’s another piece of misinformation that people might still have in their own heads. “What if I’m too scared? What if I’m too scared to vote yes. What if I changed my mind?”
Fellmeth
It is also a 100% secret ballot. Your boss literally never finds out who voted yes. Unless every single person at your company votes yes, and there’s nobody that abstains, then they did have no idea who voted yes and who voted no.
Virtual Economy
I would imagine that that’s a bit unusual.
Fellmeth
For it to be 100%? I can’t recall anything in in recent where it was absolutely 100% yes vote, like every single person voted and it was counted as a yes, but that we have had unanimous yes votes, meaning that everybody who did vote voted yes.
Virtual Economy
That makes sense.
Fellmeth
But even then, it’s not counted who exactly voted. The only person who ever finds out who voted is the National Labor Relations Board.
Virtual Economy
Excellent, another good thing to know. Another good piece of information for folks that are looking to start on this journey.
Fellmeth
I feel like I talked a lot.
Virtual Economy
No, no, seriously, it was great.
Larkin
You’re coming in hot with the tips.
Virtual Economy
It’s important, it’s important.
Larkin
We gotta know.
Virtual Economy
We gotta know, if we’re going to walk this path, we need to know what’s going to be waiting for us along the way.
Fellmeth
Yeah.
Virtual Economy
So,Kelly, from your perspective, have you witnessed this union busting kind of nonsense? Have you seen it personally? Do you have stories? I just want to open the floor for you.
Larkin
I would say that on my end, existing in a unionized studio, there are always going to be people, even people in the union, who are a little skeptical of what the union can provide.
And in my personal anecdotal experience, it’s usually people who have worked at a company for like 20 years, they’re like, hey, I’ve had it great. You know I haven’t had any problems and I’m trying to focus on, you know, furthering my career and bettering myself.
Why should I worry about what’s going on with other people? I would say, “Those are your coworkers. Those are your companions, people you see every day.”
Virtual Economy
These are the people in the game dev trenches with you, quite frankly, shoulder to shoulder as we are getting through alpha, beta and gold.
Larkin
Exactly. They’re fighting with you. Even if you’ve been there for 20, 30 years, you’ve witnessed the strange and bloody atrocities that have occurred to other people. I still think it is genuinely important to care about your coworkers, not only so you can make a good product and make all the shareholders proud or whatever it is that your boss wants.
Larkin
But we’ve got to look out for each other.
Virtual Economy
Absolutely.
Larkin
That’s where I’m at. But I’m sure Andrew has a lot more to say about this since he’s been in the trenches.
Virtual Economy
I’m excited.
Buczacki
Yeah, I was actually at Activision Blizzard King when they were starting up their “We Are ABK” movement. So I did sort of get to see it firsthand.
Virtual Economy
Oh, boy, so you’ve seen some shit.
Buczacki
And the one that always makes my eyes roll is when whoever, whatever sacrificial C-level they’ve brought to take the brunt of this comes in, does the hand wringing and says, “Well, we all obviously support unions and your right to organize, but…” (And then here’s the eye roll on it) “…but we don’t think a union is right for us and our company.”
Of course not, because you’re the ones in charge. It’s still wild to me that the union busting playbook is like 100, 200 years old at this point and they still pull out the same tactics. As Chrissy was saying, they are effective to the uninitiated, but also, they haven’t updated their playbook in forever. So ABK or whoever was in charge, I’m just going to say ABK in general, hired some firm that’s famous for doing company consultations, which is now the PC term for union busting. And yeah, they passed out like mouse pads with anti-union rhetoric on it.
And I think in terms of bringing it back to union busting, it’s pervasive. It’s everywhere. Anything the company says that is related to a union needs to be met with a level of scrutiny, right? Because the companies stand to lose the power and that they have enjoyed up until now.
So anytime they say something, you need to call it into question. Microsoft said, “Oh, we’re going to be union neutral.” Yeah, that’s great. Sure. Let’s embrace that. But at the same time hold them accountable. What do you actually mean by that?
Virtual Economy
100%. And we’ve had that conversation on Virtual Economy where we’re like, okay, so you’re labor neutral, good for you.
Buczacki
Yeah.
Virtual Economy
It means you won’t actively get in the way and engage in union busting. That should be normal
Buczacki
Right.
Virtual Economy
That needs to be baseline here.
Larkin
Yeah.
Virtual Economy
What are you doing to help your workers?
Buczacki
Right.
Virtual Economy
And as we know, Microsoft’s idea of helping its workers is layoffs in in the thousands, right?
So, we’ve seen it.
Buczacki
Lay off the people before they start organizing because “We’re labor neutral, but while we control everything, we’re still gonna get what we want while we can.” Something else like, Kelly, your example of the flight attendant thing, right?
Do you want to buy a PS5 or do you want to spend it on your union?
That’s union busting. That is them saying you are going to spend money you could be spending elsewhere. And any time a company speaks on behalf of a union or where they claim the union is going to do a thing, I’ve learned that that is a very popular and effective union busting tactic called third partying. This is where they say, “The union is this foreign entity. IATSE is going to come in here and they’re going to get their fingers in all of your pies and they’re going to ruin everything for everybody. And isn’t that terrible?” When in reality, no, you, the workers, are the union. When they say the union is going to do something, the company’s lying to you because they have no idea what the union is going to do because they are not the union.
The union is the union. I know that’s tautological, they’re saying “Here’s what we have decided you are going to be doing,” and that’s just not reasonable.
That’s just an insane premise to make, because before you’ve even started any negotiations before you even voted, before you’ve even tried to take a single step down this direction, they’re saying, “Well, here are all the ways that this is going to go wrong and it’s going to be your fault. It’s actually going to be this other, secret third party’s fault. And we know this for a fact because of, uh… don’t ask, don’t ask me.”
Larkin
Just trust us.
Buczacki
Yeah.
Virtual Economy
Source: Just trust us.
Larkin
“We’ve always had your best interests at heart, so please continue to trust us.”
Buczacki
Yeah.
Virtual Economy
“Trust us, bro.”
Fellmeth
Union busting is disgusting.
Virtual Economy
Yes, it absolutely is. Alright, so let’s say, for example, that the company that you are at that you are looking to organize within has not engaged in union busting or even if they have, who cares? But the vote is successful, and you are now unionized. Hooray. Congratulations. We have a baby union. Okay. What now? What do we do?
Fellmeth
Negotiate.
Virtual Economy
Walk through the very high-level concepts of what it means to get management to the table to begin the negotiation process.
Fellmeth
On our YouTube channel and on our Twitch channel, you can check out a video with myself and Pat White from our education department talking about all of the nitty gritty of how to negotiate a first contract. So, if you’re interested in diving more into that subject, I would recommend that you check it out there.
Virtual Economy
I’ll put that in resources, so no worries.
Fellmeth
Awesome.
Virtual Economy
You don’t have to hunt for it. You’ll just find it in the show notes.
Fellmeth
Awesome. But the first thing that y’all will do is form what’s called a negotiating committee. Usually, that is folks who are from the original organizing effort because they are already the most educated on the subject. I used to work in 2D series animation, and I helped to organize at my studio, which was a place in New York called Titmouse. When we formed our union, we ended up holding an election for the negotiating committee. It did end up being a lot of the organizing committee who was elected to that role, but we decided to open it up to the unit because all of this is run by you and your coworkers. It’s not up to anybody else to decide how all this stuff shakes out, it is up to you and your coworkers to figure out what you find to be the best solution to your problems.
Our problem was we need a negotiating committee, so we decided to hold an election. There are other ways to do that. But anyway, you form your negotiating committee. And what the negotiating committee will do is start forming proposals. And they’re not just pulling these things out of their ass. They’re not pulling these things out of nowhere. And they’re also not writing them based on their individual interests. Your job as a negotiating committee member is to be a representative of the workforce. You are there with everyone’s best interests in mind.
And in order to get that information, having one-on-one conversations with your coworkers just like you did during organizing will help figure out what people’s priority issues are. But also, we will use data, like surveys, to find out what the current status quo is, where we’re at right now. And we’ll also do things like we’ll require information from your employer and we’ll do things like information requests. So we’ll go to management, and we’ll say, “Hey we need to know what you’re paying for everybody’s health insurance. Hey, we need to know what the raises are for everybody who has worked here for the past three years. Hey, we need to know the promotion paths for people for the past three years,” so that we can get a broader sense of what exactly, again, the baseline is so that we can negotiate up from that. And that’s what the negotiation committee does. You start forming proposals. And then you will have negotiation meetings, which can be the most difficult thing to get.
You have to not only work with the schedule of management, but you have to work with the schedule of your union representatives who are negotiating, as well as the schedule of the folks on the negotiating committee. Everybody’s schedule comes into effect, and it can be difficult to land those meetings.
Management will also use that as a union busting tactic and drag their feet into getting into those meetings. But that is where collective action comes into play. And that can come in many shapes and forms… I think the first thing that comes into everybody’s mind is a strike, but that’s not the only solution. And that’s not the one solution we have. There are many different things that we could do to motivate your boss to get to the negotiating table and sit down with us. So, yeah, that’s broad strokes.
Virtual Economy
Broad strokes is good. Again, we’re just relaying the foundation for a deeper conversation, potentially multiple deeper conversations that get us even more in the nitty gritty, but we’ve got to get that foundational layer first.
Let me invite in Andrew and Kelly on this one. What are you seeing?
Buczacki
I guess, and just to kind of touch on something that Chrissy said about the proposals, one of the things that I’m really excited to see is game designers teasing apart the systems that have worked against the industry for so long at their company.
There is no one I would trust more in the world to holistically examine a company’s policies, find the things that are broken for the players in this case, right? Go with me on this analogy adventure where we are the players in this game and the system is broken and is not in our favor. How do we fix that? How do we patch our company and fix it so that it benefits and works better for everyone involved? I think game designers and the games industry in general are extremely well equipped, because this is our job.
Our job is to find problems, figure out the trade-offs, come up with the best solution that benefits everybody, and then the path to implement and execute and roll out those changes.
Virtual Economy
I mean, we are very good at creative problem solving as an industry. It’s kind of what we do.
Buczacki
Yeah, and something that is heartening to me as well is that the NLRB seems to have a little bit more, it’s got a little more bite to its bark. Kelly, you can probably speak more to this, but I am under the impression because I’ve never been at an organized studio, that once you’ve formed the union and once you’ve obtained that, you’re on that path of writing proposals. Then, we need to meet with management. We need to talk about these things.
Management has to at least attempt to engage in good faith. And if they don’t, then that’s what the NLRB is for. We can go to them, we can go to the government and say, “Hey, our bosses aren’t playing ball, we need you to get involved and kick this thing into gear.” That’s heartening to me that once you’ve gotten past that first hurdle of, okay, we’re organized, now we’re unionized, there are ways of sort of jump-starting the system.
Virtual Economy
That’s really cool. And I know that that’s what the folks at Raven ended up needing to do was getting the NLRB involved because of the egregious union busting that was happening at Activision Blizzard, which clearly I don’t need to tell you about.
Buczacki
No, and now there’s been that ruling now that says, “If we catch you union busting, you don’t get to play anymore.” And I don’t think anyone has tried to cross that line yet to see if they can get away with it, but effectively a warning is in place saying you need to play ball. You need to meet with your workers. You need to have these meetings. You will eventually wear out your welcome and at that point, other programs and other contingencies start going into effect.
Virtual Economy
That’s huge. That’s huge. And that’s really, really good to know because again, that’s just more fuel for the fire folks.
Buczacki
Yeah.
Virtual Economy
Absolutely more fuel for the fire. So, I only have one more question left and it’s a resource question.
I want to know where I can send our lovely community members and game devs. Where should I send them to gather more information about forming a union and kind of help to overcome again, like we’ve talked about the fears and stuff like that, but even just overcoming more insidious objections that are internal or external to what we’re, to what we’re talking about here? So where can I send folks?
Fellmeth
So, we’ve got a ton of resources available online. You can go to gameworkers.org to check out all of our survey information from last year. We also have our Twitch channel that we stream every Thursday at 4 Pacific 7 Eastern. That’s twitch.tv/IATSE. There’s our YouTube channel. You can also just go to Linkup.top/gameworkers
That has links to everything that I’m about to talk about right now, which is our YouTube, our Twitch, our GDC panel from this past year, as well as the zine that we handed out, which Kelly had a huge hand in making.
That’s also available on that link, which has a lot of information within it about a lot of what we touched on today. And there is also an FAQ document at that has a lot of frequently asked questions with answers. However, I want to caveat this with: there are so many questions out there that we can’t answer them all in one document or in one Twitch stream or in one podcast.
Virtual Economy
Absolutely.
Fellmeth
So, I encourage you that if you have questions, if you want to learn more, if you want to get more involved, that you reach out to me directly at IATSE. Or you can hit us up on gameworkers.org. There’s a form on there to get in touch with an organizer. Because I can best help you when I know exactly what your individual concerns are. Every person is different. Every company is different. There is no template. I can’t just hand you a PDF and say, here you go, organize your studio.
I’m here to help you and support you at every step along the way with my experience and knowledge and make sure that we succeed in the best way that I know how. It’s difficult to say that I could give you all these resources and they’re going to answer all your questions. They’re not. You’re going to have more.
Virtual Economy
Oh, I bet. But we definitely need that primer, right? This is such a great conversation and I’m so glad that we’re having it. And I want to make sure that we can continue that momentum until we help start to find critical mass as an industry. Because I think, at least from my perspective as somebody that has been covering this industry now for the better part of 15 years, I’ve seen what this industry can be. When we are well supported, when we are well funded, when we are well taken care of…
This has been so illuminating, but I want to finish our conversation with just kind of a call to arms here. I want one piece of advice from each of you for nascent organizers. What do you wish you knew at the beginning of this journey?
Larkin
I think the most important thing to know about organizing is that it starts with you. Ultimately, you are working at a game studio. You are going through it. You are experiencing all of these injustices on a daily basis, and you know there’s a better way. It’s really easy to wait for someone else to take the reins and make that happen. But you can make that happen faster by talking to your coworkers, understanding the struggles that they are going through.
Are they the same struggles? Are they different ones? Are there these larger issues that need to be combated? At the end of the day, speaking with your coworkers and raising your voice to these issues is what gives you and subsequently your coworkers the power to create that change. So whatever rage, frustration, misery, existentialism you have welling up inside of you about your current working situation, it’s time to channel that into action.
direct action, speaking with your coworkers, creating a community of people you can trust and working with those coworkers and a really cool organizer like Chrissyto create a union.
Virtual Economy
That’s really great. Thank you, Kelly. Andrew, what about you? What would be your piece of advice?
Buczacki
The tables have turned. Kelly said something so articulate and well-spoken that I am at a loss for words. But I will add on to that and say, it’s simpler than it looks… it’s much simpler and you’re already doing a lot of the work anyway. You can’t get three game designers and in a room together without starting to complain about work and your working conditions, because the status quo has been so brutal for so long. You’re already having that conversation about the things we’re struggling about? And most of those conversations end with like, “Yeah, that sucks.”
I hope things get better for you. But you could have a different question instead like, “What can we do to fix it?”
And the answer does not have to be, “I guess I’ll start looking for work elsewhere,” because you’re going to jump somewhere else and you’re going to replace your current studio struggles and problems with BS in your new studio. The honeymoon phase will wear off. And being able to ask that next question and dare to ask, “What if we could we talk to our bosses about this? Is this something that we can affect on our own?”
And then you will invariably come to, I think, the conclusion that we can’t. It’s going to fall on deaf ears. Now what? A curve is made of infinite, short, straight lines, right? You just sort of make that tiny little step and eventually you can sort of change the course of how things are going.
Virtual Economy
You know what? That was an excellent analogy. I really, really like that. Every small step matters, even if you can’t see the progress towards the end goal.
That’s actually a great life philosophy in general, people. So hold on to that.
Buczacki
To Kelly’s point, I am positive that this change is happening, that unionization is starting to take hold in our industry. And I’m very optimistic about that. But coming back to third partying, the union is not going to swoop in and save you by wearing a cape and wearing someone else’s face, because you are the union. So, the sooner that you get to work doing that tiny little step of talking to your coworker and asking that question and pushing that along, the faster it will happen for you.
Virtual Economy
I love that.
Fellmeth
Hell yeah.
Buczacki
Now I’m done.
Virtual Economy
That’s so good, though. That’s so good. I love these nuggets of wisdom. All right, Chrissy, bring us home. Any nuggets of wisdom that you would like to share before we wrap?
Fellmeth
I’ve got so many. But just like Kelly and Andrew were saying, you have to do it. We can’t do it for you. I’d love to. I’d love to walk into your studio and plant a flag and say, “Y’all are union now.” But that’s not the way the law in America works. But I also want you to know that if you’re out there and you’re thinking about this, you are not alone. Work doesn’t suck solely because it’s your fault. As much as your boss wants to think that it’s your fault. It’s not your fault.
It doesn’t have to be this way. You’re not alone either. Your coworkers are thinking the same thing. And the only way that you find out is by talking to them. There is something so powerful about sharing that with other people that you work with and then realizing that you can solve that problem together. I can’t explain that feeling.
You have to do it. It’s infectious. It’ll make other people want to join you. You can do this, and you can win. So hit me up. Let’s get this started. The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The best time to start your union was yesterday.
Virtual Economy
And the second-best time is now.
Fellmeth
Correct. So let’s do it today.