CWA And Video Game Workers Launch New Industry-Wide Union Anyone Can Join, Even If They've Been Laid Off

[Omaha Steve]

With the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board under attack by Trump, CWA is trying something old and new
By Nathan Grayson

9:00 AM EDT on March 19, 2025



Today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Communications Workers of America (CWA) – the union that represents over 2,000 workers across companies like Microsoft, Activision, Bethesda, and Zenimax – is announcing a new industry-wide union called United Videogame Workers-CWA. Unlike unions that have been studio- or discipline-specific, this one is open to all video game workers in the United States and Canada, regardless of employment status.

UVW-CWA is rooted in the tradition of direct-join unionism, which means the union itself isn’t certified by any particular government or company, allowing anyone to join. As a result, this type of union doesn’t have the same type of legal leverage that something organized in accordance with modern laws and strictures might. But, as Emma Kinema, one of the original game devs behind the 2018 Game Workers Unite campaign and current CODE-CWA senior campaign lead, wrote in a zine explaining the rationale behind UVW-CWA, the law isn’t exactly on workers’ side these days.

"With the tumultuous start of the second Trump Administration, two of the agencies that workers rely on to protect their rights and hold corporations accountable – the Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) – are under attack,” she wrote. “Between Trump’s illegal firing of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, Elon Musk challenging the National Labor Relations Act as unconstitutional, and huge tech giants like Amazon already using the vacant NLRB as grounds to reject union wins, it’s clear that Trump and the billionaire class he represents are working day and night to dismantle labor laws and put even more power back in the hands of corporations. We can no longer expect to rely on traditional legal frameworks to build worker power and to improve workplace conditions.”

If the right-wing, reactionary government that we increasingly have wants to start stripping away that process, they're going to quickly remember that, actually, the NLRB and NLRA are a peace treaty between workers and bosses.

FULL story: https://aftermath.site/uvw-cwa-video-game-union-microsoft-trump-musk

[Alliepoo]

1. Good on them!!!

Proud member (retired) of CWA Local 4320!!! You go, guys!!!