Bioware’s testers working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf have voted to form Canada’s first video game industry unionized workplace. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 applied in April to become the certified negotiating agent for Keywords Studios, the contracting company through which the testers are employed. Now Kotaku says the election resulted in a 16-0 vote for unionization. Before working on the fourth major game in the Dragon Age franchise, they also supported the development of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and Legacy of the Sith, an expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The testers, who work out of BioWare’s Edmonton office, began organizing after Keywords Studios announced they would be returning to the office, while direct BioWare employees were given more options. Keywords took its return to the office, but the testers told Kotaku that they are working on it to prevent it from being reinstated and to get the company to increase their pay. Currently, their base wage is around $13 an hour, roughly equivalent to the region’s minimum wage. They argued that the amount they receive is disproportionate to the skills required for the job and that BioWare employees who do the same work are paid much more.
The union that now represents the workers is expected to negotiate with the studio’s bosses sometime this week. In an email sent by the QA testers, they wrote, “We are excited to begin negotiations with the employer and begin a more equitable work situation.”
In the US, QA employees at Activision Blizzard studio Raven Software voted to unionize last month. That came after they went on strike after layoffs hit 12 testers and after the studio split the remaining workers into different departments, perhaps in an effort to make union efforts difficult to organize. Xbox head Phil Spencer has announced that Microsoft will recognize the union after the tech giant completes its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
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