Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development Workers Form Video Game Union with CWA
|
|
Key points
- Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development team voted in favor of union representation with the Communications Workers of America.
- The team is responsible for creating cinematics, animation, and narrative content.
- The principal editor and member of the organizing committee shared a statement with the CWA.
Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development (SFD) team voted in majority’s favor of union representation with the Communications Workers of America (CWA); the SFD team is responsible for creating cinematics, animation, and narrative content for Blizzard. The principal editor, Bucky Fisk, shared a statement with the CWA, stating that stability has been fading from Blizzard.
The goal with the union, according to Bucky Fisk, is to preserve what makes Blizzard special, while securing transparency in how decisions are made and to “make sure policies are applied fairly to everyone.”
“I’m excited that we have joined together in forming a union to protect my colleagues from things like misguided policies and instability as a result of layoffs,” John Giarratana, cinematic producer for SFD, said.
The CWA Local 9510 President, Jason Justice, expressed excitement regarding the SFD team joining the union, stating that the team sets the standards for animation and storytelling across the video game industry.
As of writing, over 6,000 workers in the United States and Canada have organized with the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) since its debut over five years ago. The CWA helped the ZeniMax QA developers secure a contract with Microsoft in June. The CWA is one of the largest labor unions in the United States, with over 700,000 workers in total.
