Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union • Hacker News Board

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#111

Post by Animats » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:39 PM UTC

Funny how the "story" doesn't link to the announcement it mostly copied from the CWA.[1]

Here's the link to the union organizing page.[2] No draft union contract for Id, though.

Interestingly, this is an industrial ("wall to wall") union, rather than a craft union such as The Animation Guild. IATSE Local 839, in Hollywood. TAG only represents specific jobs, mostly animation artists.

A key point in TAG contracts is how "crunch time" is handled. It's allowed, but overtime rates go way, way up as the hours go up. This is standard procedure in Hollywood. Some terms from TAG's standard contract:

All time worked in excess of eight (8) hours per day or forty (40) hours per week shall be paid at one and one-half (1½) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee's classification. Time worked on the employee's sixth workday of the workweek shall be paid at one and one-half (1½) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee's classification. Time worked on the employee's seventh workday of the workweek shall be paid at two (2) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee's classification. All time worked in excess of fourteen (14) consecutive hours (including meal periods) from the time of reporting to work shall be Golden Hours and shall be paid at two (2) times the applicable hourly rate provided herein for such employee's classification.[3]

This encourages management to schedule realistically. The Id/CWA deal isn't far enough along for those terms to be visible yet. But such terms are common in CWA contracts.

[1] https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/video-game-developers-te...

[2] https://code-cwa.org/

[3] https://animationguild.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/2024-2...

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#112

Post by danaris » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

Izikiel43 wrote: post #103

danaris wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a union should be monomanically about representing worker interests and stay far away from any other kind of issue So...should it pick and choose which kinds of workers to represent the interests of? Or should it fight for the interests of all the workers? Because that's really the choice it has to make: do you fight for the interests of disabled workers, and female workers, and trans workers, and black workers, an…

> Because that's really the choice it has to make: do you fight for the interests of disabled workers, and female workers, and trans workers, and black workers, and immigrant workers? Or do you only fight for the interests of white male workers? You fight for the interests of tech workers in this case, or truckers in a truckers union, so on and so forth. Why are americans so obsessed to make everything about race? If…

> Why are americans so obsessed to make everything about race?

Because the political party currently in power in our country is an actual, literal, (Christian) White Supremacist party.

They are deliberately rounding up people that look like they might be Hispanic (and various other non-white ethnicities), declaring them to be illegal immigrants regardless of their actual status, and deporting them or putting them in camps.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#113

Post by deanCommie » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

Somewhere, John Carmack, in his new conservative era, is seething.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#114

Post by nickthegreek » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

appreciatorBus wrote: post #79

popalchemist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company's existence depends on the unfair exploitation of its staff, its foreclosure is inevitable and justified, and that is simply the price everyone involved must pay to maintain equilibrium.

Employees being paid less than they would prefer to get paid for a given type of work does not imply "unfair exploitation"

Pay is a but a single way in which an employer can attempt to unfairly exploit you.

The rest tends to hide behind culture and opportunity. Unpaid overtime framed as dedication, scope creep framed as growth, on-call expectations framed as ownership, understaffing framed as efficiency. You might find these game developers being abused by a few or all of these examples.

Exploitive companies can borrow against your pride, your fear of falling behind, and your desire to be seen as competent until your baseline becomes always available.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#115

Post by jessepasley » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

an_cap wrote: post #100

FWIW, the union (CWA) via its Seattle affiliate tried to get OPT banned, a visa status that many readers of HN benefited from - https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cadc/2... . I encourage HN readers to better understand the relationship between unions and immigration before deciding whether they are in favor of joining/supporting unions.

Similarly, I encourage HN readers to better understand the relationship between unions and immigration before deciding whether they are in favor of immigration.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#116

Post by seneca » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:41 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #98

appreciatorBus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees being paid less than they would prefer to get paid for a given type of work does not imply "unfair exploitation"

Employers having to pay more than they'd prefer to pay for a given type of work/provide better working conditions does not imply "unfair exploitation" of the company by the union, either. It's just a market reaching equilibrium. It's always weird how employees are forever to be expected to be at the mercy of market forces much greater than they are, while employers have to be shielded from them.

> It's just a market reaching equilibrium. It's always weird how employees are forever to be expected to be at the mercy of market forces much greater than they are, while employers have to be shielded from them.

It's not a market, at all. It's only possible because of federal law that prevents a business from firing employees for unionizing. If it were a market, the business would have to choose to keep unionzed workers voluntarily. The fact that they don't means it's more like the business being held hostage.

The equivalent would be employees being required by law to stay at a company they don't want to work for. Essentially indentured servitude.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#117

Post by kristofferg » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:41 PM UTC

appreciatorBus wrote: post #86

overfeed wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that's cold comfort to someone who doesn't have a job because the company went out of business I suppose only those who lose their jobs because of a merger, or the CEO making poor decisions ought to get the warm and fuzzies because someone on the Internet won't blame them for their own misfortune. Somewhere on the spectrum between "egalitarian, flat organization Utopia" and "Slavery", one has to draw a line whe…

You forgot that collective ruin is also an option and we have seen this many times when societies attempted to do away with economic & market concepts.

Unions are part of a healthy market economy. The succesful suppression of unions is a market failure.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#118

Post by Normal_gaussian » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:41 PM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #47

popalchemist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company's existence depends on the unfair exploitation of its staff, its foreclosure is inevitable and justified, and that is simply the price everyone involved must pay to maintain equilibrium.

Perhaps. But that's cold comfort to someone who doesn't have a job because the company went out of business. You would have to be an enormous asshole to say "it'll result in a better equilibrium" to someone who just lost his job.

The point is rather that the company would go under with our without the union. The union just means the staff aren't plundered along with the electric cables as the shop sinks.

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#119

Post by overfeed » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:41 PM UTC

seneca wrote: post #101

overfeed wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is union-related collective ruin anathema, but elite-driven ruin is seen as an acceptable price to pay? Enron, the Great Recession, etc.

>Why is union-related collective ruin anathema, but elite-driven ruin is seen as an acceptable price to pay? Enron, the Great Recession, etc. What are you talking about? Multiple people were convicted over the Enron scandal, including some serious prison terms.

> What are you talking about?

I am pointing out that some commenters here are grading Unions and CEOs on different curves on the issue of negative outcomes, and the alleged union bogeyman is a frequent occurrence at ununionized organizations.

> Multiple people were convicted over the Enron scandal, including some serious prison terms.

That is great, and should have been a deterrent for more ruinous shenanigans. Which CEOs got arrested for the subprime mortgage heists that triggered the 2008 GFC? The GFC made Enron look like jaywalking, I'm sure dozens of executive received life sentences and entire banks shuttered for their malfeasance and lack of internal controls. Right?

Re: Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union

#120

Post by didibus » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 7:42 PM UTC

hellojesus wrote: post #28

podgorniy wrote: post #20

Good for them. During economic downturns, when fewer resources are available for redistribution, collective action across population groups can help address worsening power imbalances.

To an extent. There is always the chance that the collective action discounts the impact to the business too heavily and ends up driving the company under, making the outcomes worse for everyone. We saw this a couple years ago with Yellow Trucking.

I think there's a false perception that unions negotiate against the companies best interest.

Unions negotiate for a bigger slice of the same pie against leadership, executives, and shareholders/owners.

They have the same incentives as those to see the pie grow, but band together to negotiate that their pie be bigger and those of the above smaller than what would have been otherwise.

Most of the time when it results in squeezing the company itself it's because leadership wasn't willing to share downsides.

And this is the primary reason for unions. When things go well, leadership is rarely willing to share upsides. When things go bad, leadership is often unwilling to share downsides. Workers join union to pressure leadership in sharing both upsides and downsides.