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Game Workers Unite

gameworkersunite.org

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Re: Game Workers Unite

#21

Post by ramy_d »

theyinwhy wrote: post #14
ugh123 wrote: post #12

Consider some of the negative affects of unions when working alongside low and high performers in technology: - Protection for under performers alongside high performers. Difficult or darn near impossible to terminate employment. Ability to enforce performance evaluation and plans could be killed by the union. Common in teacher unions. - Without being able to measure performance, pay may be solely based on tenure, no…

Filmmaking, especially in Hollywood, has a long tradition of strong unions. As all your statements are invalid in terms of Hollywood, I don't see why they should be valid for the game industry.

I think the way film making unions are organized is something to look into but my impression is that the problem space is more familiar when you look at what industrial worker unions deal with. That is: careers under a single employer instead of gigs where you go from employer to employer and have to basically get re-hired.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#23

Post by giantsloth »

humanrebar wrote: post #20
brann0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, sir, is just FUD. The dangerous type. Unions protect workers from being exploited and abused. If you're not happy with how some employee performs, you can still fire him in place. But be ready to prove it. No more firing people on a whim just because. If game industry isn't sustainable without exploitation, then we need it to adapt, and not the other way around.

> But be ready to prove it. How do you prove that an employee took two weeks to find a bug that should have taken one day to find? How do you prove that writing a domain-specific language was a bad decision compared to defining a complex XML schema? How do you prove that an engineer is bad at explaining technical concepts?

General consensus amongst the developers that work directly with the person being investigated. It's pretty easy. Head butting with poor managers and broken company structures with ZERO recourse is the problem. The strawman you're putting up is not.

Re: Game Workers Unite

#24

Post by ttoinou »

I have read the whole website and failed to see one concrete example of action that the union could take to make game-industry employees' life better

   Game Workers Unite is a broad-reaching organization
   that seeks to connect pro-union activists,
   exploited workers, and allies across borders
   and across ideologies in the name of
   building a unionized game industry.
Even compatible with the libertarian ideology :p ?

Re: Game Workers Unite

#25

Post by vvanders »

brann0 wrote: post #18
ugh123 wrote: post #12

Consider some of the negative affects of unions when working alongside low and high performers in technology: - Protection for under performers alongside high performers. Difficult or darn near impossible to terminate employment. Ability to enforce performance evaluation and plans could be killed by the union. Common in teacher unions. - Without being able to measure performance, pay may be solely based on tenure, no…

That, sir, is just FUD. The dangerous type. Unions protect workers from being exploited and abused. If you're not happy with how some employee performs, you can still fire him in place. But be ready to prove it. No more firing people on a whim just because. If game industry isn't sustainable without exploitation, then we need it to adapt, and not the other way around.

Yup, only terminations I saw in gamedev were very much with-cause scenarios(employee threatening physical violence).

Re: Game Workers Unite

#26

Post by skybrian »

ramy_d wrote: post #21
theyinwhy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Filmmaking, especially in Hollywood, has a long tradition of strong unions. As all your statements are invalid in terms of Hollywood, I don't see why they should be valid for the game industry.

I think the way film making unions are organized is something to look into but my impression is that the problem space is more familiar when you look at what industrial worker unions deal with. That is: careers under a single employer instead of gigs where you go from employer to employer and have to basically get re-hired.

Hmm, but why shouldn't games work like a Hollywood-style gig economy, since the need for labor varies depending on a game's lifecycle?

Re: Game Workers Unite

#27

Post by ginko »

humanrebar wrote: post #20
brann0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, sir, is just FUD. The dangerous type. Unions protect workers from being exploited and abused. If you're not happy with how some employee performs, you can still fire him in place. But be ready to prove it. No more firing people on a whim just because. If game industry isn't sustainable without exploitation, then we need it to adapt, and not the other way around.

> But be ready to prove it. How do you prove that an employee took two weeks to find a bug that should have taken one day to find? How do you prove that writing a domain-specific language was a bad decision compared to defining a complex XML schema? How do you prove that an engineer is bad at explaining technical concepts?

Which side are you on?

Re: Game Workers Unite

#28

Post by ttoinou »

horsecaptin wrote: post #8
131012 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workers in the game industry are not only devs. There are also artists, testers, IT techs, marketers. I'm not sure the biggest issue is about the salary, but the (unpaid) overtime, precarity, sudden lay-offs, etc.

Okay, let's call it compensation. That is a good umbrella term that includes salary, overtime and benefits. The compensation for game workers sucks compared to their counterparts in other software fields. This is probably because it is sexier to be a game dev than, say, working at Salesforce. It is a good idea for game industry workers to form a union or guild.

   it is sexier to be a game dev than, say, working at Salesforce.
So what should we do, besides educate people about the reality of working in this industry (which is not really the point of an union) ?

Re: Game Workers Unite

#29

Post by giantsloth »

humanrebar wrote: post #15
ugh123 wrote: post #12

Consider some of the negative affects of unions when working alongside low and high performers in technology: - Protection for under performers alongside high performers. Difficult or darn near impossible to terminate employment. Ability to enforce performance evaluation and plans could be killed by the union. Common in teacher unions. - Without being able to measure performance, pay may be solely based on tenure, no…

Unions are reactionary organizations. They tend to create and enforce rules around how things work now . Unions don't like it if new technology lets two workers do the work of forty.

All organizations are reactionary and necessarily settle on the state of the world at the current moment. This is an extremely bizarre line of logic you are using.

There is always version lock in at some point, and NO workers like change if it's going to cause them to lose their livelihood. This has nothing to do with unions.

Why do you care more about protecting artificial constructs like companies at the expense of power given to people building the products?

Re: Game Workers Unite

#30

Post by noahth »

canthonytucci wrote: post #7

Why only game workers? Why not software workers/codewriters in general? I'd prefer something closer to SAG than the auto workers union personally.

The game industry is not just coders, for one thing. Also worth noting this effort doesn’t preclude anyone from organizing a software developer’s union; in fact some people are working on that goal, and it’s also possible to join IWW as a software developer.

But to offer a different answer to “why just games” - this particular effort is newsworthy right now because it was organized to be promoted heavily at GDC, which I believe just ended.

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