First UK games workers' union formed to demand rights

[BananaInSandals]

Source:

https://news.sky.com/story/video-games-workers-create-union-to-demand-rights-11581699

(saw this on r/runescape)

 

Quote

Excessive and unpaid overtime, precarious contracts and discrimination are all serious problems in the industry, according the the Games Workers' Union, which launched on Friday.

Now it is hoping to use collective organising to fix a "broken sector and create an ethical industry", according to founding member Dec Peach.

Quote

one of the biggest concerns for Mr Peach and his follow members is likely to be "crunch" - the practice of excessive unpaid overtime that's common in the industry.

 

Personal thoughts:

Sounds like a positive step to the right direction. But I guess it also depends on how many people are joining the union and who's supporting them. Without a large portion of people working in the gaming industry in the UK joining, they won't have enough bargaining power against the employers/companies. 

However, I doubt "crunch" will be totally eliminated. Sadly, problems always happens (especially during the last phase of development) and crunch will almost certainly be required to fix and patch stuff up. I do hope workers will be suitably compensated for crunch in the future.

[Bouzoo]

Good. Let this just turn out to be a positive union, and not half arsed attempt.

 

16 minutes ago, BananaInSandals said:

Without a large portion of people working in the gaming industry in the UK joining, they won't have enough bargaining power against the employers/companies. 

If we're talking Europe, UK might be the best choice, because of the sheer number of studios there. And it might be best in general, since I'd dare to say that are unions (that actually do something) are more efficient than unions in US or let's say Japan. Now UK in it's current state is also open for discussion.

[jagdtigger]

12 minutes ago, BananaInSandals said:

However, I doubt "crunch" will be totally eliminated.

They only need to eliminate the unpaid part . BTW we (production line workers) have a similar issue with "time frames". they basically legally allowed to create negative hours when there is no work(meaning we dont even go to work, and get pain like normal), then when needed we most go to work even on weekends for (almost) no extra money.... Biggest problem is they also write negative hours when its their fault meaning they supposed to swallow it, not write it onto us.

[jones177]

Sound like a good idea. 

 

All show business/entertainment industries have crunch times and most have unions. The penalty of extra overtime helps to weed out poor management and in the end a better product. 

 

[porina]

I've yet to see an employment union that I'd consider useful. If the employer is breaking the law, take legal action. Otherwise, if you just don't like it, GTFO.

[jagdtigger]

4 minutes ago, porina said:

If the employer is breaking the law, take legal action.

Problem is they usually change the law one-way or an another... Just like by us, our laws changed so employers can make us work for extra 400 hours a year, and have 3 years to pay our overtime fee or make it disappear with negative hours.

[Sakkura]

16 minutes ago, porina said:

I've yet to see an employment union that I'd consider useful. If the employer is breaking the law, take legal action. Otherwise, if you just don't like it, GTFO.

An individual often won't have the resources to prevail in a lawsuit against their employer. A union is extremely useful in that situation.

 

They're also extremely helpful in situations where there's no clear legal regulation. For example, there is no minimum wage in my country, yet fast food workers at McDonald's are still guaranteed $20+ per hour. Unions.

 

"GTFO" is not a relevant alternative in many, many situations.

[Maxxtraxx]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

I've yet to see an employment union that I'd consider useful. If the employer is breaking the law, take legal action. Otherwise, if you just don't like it, GTFO.

My take:

 

In the US, Unions once had a purpose, to provide an effective countermeasure to the enormous monopolies(not talking about the current  google, facebook, twitter, ect)  who completely controlled entire industries.

 

In the US, workers protections under the law are very good, Unions now operate more like the Mafia, they use intimidation and harassment against non union members(regularly destroying and vandalizing non union work trucks and stealing their equipment), they work to protect dead weight(incompetent, unwilling and blatantly uncaring) workers employment, they demand protection money to even be considered for a job(which in govt sector unions could be forcefully taken against your will from your paycheck until the most recent supreme court case).

 

The greatest protection against abusive employers is to be good at your job, be financially independent(have little to no debt, have a 3-6 month emergency fund) and to be willing to leave.

 

If you've tied yourself to your job with golden handcuffs because of financial obligations you've knowingly and willfully taken on and are constantly living paycheck to paycheck.

 

In the US, unions have a very bad reputation, for a very good reason.

 

If a union was to operate with reason, rationality and reason-ability instead of like a bully it could be useful... but power corrupts and once power is gained it is not often willingly given up.

 

(the best, most effective, most efficient government in the world would be a benevolent dictatorship(adjective for well meaning and kindly)... but power corrupts and a democracy/republic is often needed to correct the loss of benevolence inherent with unquestioned power)

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, Maxxtraxx said:

In the US, workers protections under the law are very good

 

[Derangel]

1 hour ago, Maxxtraxx said:

My take:

 

In the US, Unions once had a purpose, to provide an effective countermeasure to the enormous monopolies(not talking about the current  google, facebook, twitter, ect)  who completely controlled entire industries.

 

In the US, workers protections under the law are very good, Unions now operate more like the Mafia, they use intimidation and harassment against non union members(regularly destroying and vandalizing non union work trucks and stealing their equipment), they work to protect dead weight(incompetent, unwilling and blatantly uncaring) workers employment, they demand protection money to even be considered for a job(which in govt sector unions could be forcefully taken against your will from your paycheck until the most recent supreme court case).

 

The greatest protection against abusive employers is to be good at your job, be financially independent(have little to no debt, have a 3-6 month emergency fund) and to be willing to leave.

 

If you've tied yourself to your job with golden handcuffs because of financial obligations you've knowingly and willfully taken on and are constantly living paycheck to paycheck.

 

In the US, unions have a very bad reputation, for a very good reason.

 

If a union was to operate with reason, rationality and reason-ability instead of like a bully it could be useful... but power corrupts and once power is gained it is not often willingly given up.

 

(the best, most effective, most efficient government in the world would be a benevolent dictatorship(adjective for well meaning and kindly)... but power corrupts and a democracy/republic is often needed to correct the loss of benevolence inherent with unquestioned power)

US worker laws are a complete joke. The US is the ONLY 1st world power to allow bullshit like "At-Will" employment. Even freaking China requires reasons for employees to be fired from a job. 

 

Unions have a bad rep in the US due to massive propaganda by anti-union megacorps like Walmart. Companies like Walmart use their employee orientation to try and brainwash people against unions and make vague threats about people even talking to anyone that even brings up the word union. Not every union is good, but in most places I've seen unions provide members with a hell of a lot better working environment than non-union places.

[Maxxtraxx]

34 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

 

Care to share your grievances about certain short comings that you have in mind?

 

US dept of labor worker protection laws summary: Here

 

What protections above and beyond the items listed above would you find reasonable and necessary?

[Teddy07]

I hate unions and their strikes. Always annoying when it hits you.

[Derangel]

Just now, Teddy07 said:

I hate unions and their strikes. Always annoying when it hits you.

With a good union, strikes are part of making sure their members get the contracts required to make life better for them. The recent SAG-AFTA strike against the game industry is a great example. While the union didn't get everything they wanted, they forced the game industry to actually negotiate a much better deal for their members.

[Maxxtraxx]

1 minute ago, Derangel said:

With a good union, strikes are part of making sure their members get the contracts required to make life better for them. The recent SAG-AFTA strike against the game industry is a great example. While the union didn't get everything they wanted, they forced the game industry to actually negotiate a much better deal for their members.

Good for them, I'm not advocating for abusive action on either side, better pay and benefits are good but they should be based upon individual performance in the form of quality of work, performance, and production. 

 

The goal of any good employer to employee relationship is that the employee provides more income for the company via their performance than their cost of performing the work they do, that's how the company makes money, making money for performing services is what the employee does and what the employer does for their customers. The more valuable the employee is by producing more goods or services for the company the more they are due in compensation.

 

My problem with collective bargaining is that it too often provides security and cover for workers who are incompetent, lazy and unwilling to do more than the minimum... they ride on the coat tails of others doing the work and everyone is worse off because of it, the employer costs go up, other employees have to pick up the slack caused by the poor performance of others and the union often advocates and protects for those who have hurt other employees and the employer because of their actions.

[Drak3]

19 minutes ago, Derangel said:

The US is the ONLY 1st world power to allow bullshit like "At-Will" employment.

1. Protecting employer rights.
2. Most states have "exceptions" that make them "At will employment" states ONLY in name.

[3 Lions]

15 minutes ago, Derangel said:

strikes are part of making sure their members get the contracts required to make life better for them

And not strike when a pie heater doesn't work...

 

I'm looking at you Rootes Linwood. 

[Derangel]

2 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Good for them, I'm not advocating for abusive action on either side, better pay and benefits are good but they should be based upon individual performance in the form of quality of work, performance, and production. 

 

The goal of any good employer to employee relationship is that the employee provides more income for the company via their performance than their cost of performing the work they do, that's how the company makes money, making money for performing services is what the employee does and what the employer does for their customers. The more valuable the employee is by producing more goods or services for the company the more they are due in compensation.

 

My problem with collective bargaining is that it too often provides security and cover for workers who are incompetent, lazy and unwilling to do more than the minimum... they ride on the coat tails of others doing the work and everyone is worse off because of it, the employer costs go up, other employees have to pick up the slack caused by the poor performance of others and the union often advocates and protects for those who have hurt other employees and the employer because of their actions.

Those lazy workers work at non-union job and skate by as well. Unions, generally, protect members from crap like "at-will" employment laws meaning a job has to have just cause to fire someone. It is up to the place of employment to justify that cause, according to contracts and the employee handbook (is one exists). If bad workers, union job or not, are allowed to stick around and keep being bad workers that is on the employer. Bad employees sticking around despite being terrible at their job or just too lazy to do anything is a problem anywhere, it is not remotely exclusive to unions.

[Sakkura]

32 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Care to share your grievances about certain short comings that you have in mind?

 

US dept of labor worker protection laws summary: Here

 

What protections above and beyond the items listed above would you find reasonable and necessary?

At-will employment, no paid vacation, no paid family leave and strict limits even on unpaid family leave, extremely low minimum wage, poor regulation of working hours and work-life balance, poor safety regulations and compensation, allowing pseudoscientific shit like polygraph testing at all...

[Maxxtraxx]

4 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Those lazy workers work at non-union job and skate by as well. Unions, generally, protect members from crap like "at-will" employment laws meaning a job has to have just cause to fire someone. It is up to the place of employment to justify that cause, according to contracts and the employee handbook (is one exists). If bad workers, union job or not, are allowed to stick around and keep being bad workers that is on the employer. Bad employees sticking around despite being terrible at their job or just too lazy to do anything is a problem anywhere, it is not remotely exclusive to unions.

These lazy workers skate by at companies with uncaring/incompetent/lazy HR and management, they do not last at companies with competent HR and management. I have worked for both types of companies and seen the stark difference between them.

 

Unions add another layer of protection for incompetence, unions started off with good intentions, unions can still do good, unions have long since passed from public sector commonality because of the enormous improvements in the workplace in the past 100 years.

[Maxxtraxx]

38 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

At-will employment, no paid vacation, no paid family leave and strict limits even on unpaid family leave, extremely low minimum wage, poor regulation of working hours and work-life balance, poor safety regulations and compensation, allowing pseudoscientific shit like polygraph testing at all...

At will employment is not a problem, it's life no matter what millennials think they're entitled to.

 

not having paid vacation is not normal but still a 1st world problem, i'm fine with unpaid vacation, the employee also needs to be conscious that their employers specific needs to its customers and thusly the employee needs to be reasonable in taking their vacations, not just demanding they be catered to regardless of the company's needs.

 

 

FMLA eligibility requires the following criteria: The employee must have been employed with the company for 12 months. The employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months prior to the start of FMLA leave.

Twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:

• the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
• the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
• to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;
• a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;
• any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or

• Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the servicemember’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave).

Low minimum wage means look for another job with higher wages, means education to improve opportunities, means do your job well and get promoted, or find another job.

 

poor regulation of working hours, the hours the job requires should be known when you take it, if it changes without your approval, find a new job. 

 

I understand the work life balance issue it can be hard, if you can't handle it then move on, I worked for 8 years as a salary(paid the same regardless of hours worked) employee at a company that required working five 12 hours days and one 11 hour day, every week, thats 60-70 hours a week. I didn't die. I have a wife, I now have 3 kids. I eventually left for reasons other than what I listed above.

 

Poor safety regulations, we have OSHA, they're not perfect, some of their regulations are based on 1960's information, but they provide requirements that are generally reasonable for workplace safety so long as employees provide a dose of common sense.

 

IMO: there is so much right with workers rights protections today that the grievances have progressed into the territory of workers not being given enough special attention, special accommodations, coddling and pleasures that were all completely non existent 100 years ago. I'm not saying that these things are not good and helpful.

 

I'm saying that there's so much right that we don't realize that much of our complaining revolves around special accommodations and treatment and makes it all sound very much like we're actively looking for things, anything to be upset about... we have protections and regulations that HUGE swaths of the world can barely even dream of, they're just trying no to die on the job and put food on the table, screw FMLA, paid family leave, poor working hours, work/life balance, and polygraph tests.

 

We sometimes sounds very much like twitter.

[Sakkura]

2 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

At will employment is not a problem, it's life no matter what millennials think they're entitled to.

 

not having paid vacation is not normal but still a 1st world problem, i'm fine with unpaid vacation, the employee also needs to be conscious that their employers specific needs to its customers and thusly the employee needs to be reasonable in taking their vacations, not just demanding they be catered to regardless of the company's needs.

It isn't "life no matter what" and this has nothing to do with millennials.

 

Having mandatory paid vacation is the norm in advanced countries. The employer isn't entitled to rule their employees' lives like feudal lords, there should be a balance between the needs of each. Unions help provide that balance by making the employees as powerful as the employers.

 

As for FMLA, roughly half of American workers are not covered by it at all.

9 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Low minimum wage means look for another job with higher wages, means education to improve opportunities, means do your job well and get promoted, or find another job.

Unless you can't. Getting fair wages via unions is much more viable. $20+ per hour at McDonald's, how does that sound? You would never get that without unions.

 

11 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

I'm saying that there's so much right that we don't realize that much of our complaining revolves around special accommodations and treatment and makes it all sound very much like we're actively looking for things, anything to be upset about... we have protections and regulations that HUGE swaths of the world can barely even dream of, they're just trying no to die on the job and put food on the table, screw FMLA, paid family leave, poor working hours, work/life balance, and polygraph tests. 

I can assure you we do not dream of American regulations in Scandinavia. They are actively used as an example of what not to do.

[Trixanity]

32 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

At will employment is not a problem, it's life no matter what millennials think they're entitled to.

 

not having paid vacation is not normal but still a 1st world problem, i'm fine with unpaid vacation, the employee also needs to be conscious that their employers specific needs to its customers and thusly the employee needs to be reasonable in taking their vacations, not just demanding they be catered to regardless of the company's needs.

 

 

FMLA eligibility requires the following criteria: The employee must have been employed with the company for 12 months. The employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months prior to the start of FMLA leave.

Twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:

• the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
• the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
• to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;
• a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;
• any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or

• Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the servicemember’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave).

Low minimum wage means look for another job with higher wages, means education to improve opportunities, means do your job well and get promoted, or find another job.

 

poor regulation of working hours, the hours the job requires should be known when you take it, if it changes without your approval, find a new job. 

 

I understand the work life balance issue it can be hard, if you can't handle it then move on, I worked for 8 years as a salary(paid the same regardless of hours worked) employee at a company that required working five 12 hours days and one 11 hour day, every week, thats 60-70 hours a week. I didn't die. I have a wife, I now have 3 kids. I eventually left for reasons other than what I listed above.

 

Poor safety regulations, we have OSHA, they're not perfect, some of their regulations are based on 1960's information, but they provide requirements that are generally reasonable for workplace safety so long as employees provide a dose of common sense.

 

IMO: there is so much right with workers rights protections today that the grievances have progressed into the territory of workers not being given enough special attention, special accommodations, coddling and pleasures that were all completely non existent 100 years ago. I'm not saying that these things are not good and helpful.

 

I'm saying that there's so much right that we don't realize that much of our complaining revolves around special accommodations and treatment and makes it all sound very much like we're actively looking for things, anything to be upset about... we have protections and regulations that HUGE swaths of the world can barely even dream of, they're just trying no to die on the job and put food on the table, screw FMLA, paid family leave, poor working hours, work/life balance, and polygraph tests.

 

We sometimes sounds very much like twitter.

[porina]

3 hours ago, Maxxtraxx said:

If a union was to operate with reason, rationality and reason-ability instead of like a bully it could be useful... but power corrupts and once power is gained it is not often willingly given up.

This. The inherent fault with unions is they work for the best for their members, not the business as a whole.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

It isn't "life no matter what" and this has nothing to do with millennials.

 

Having mandatory paid vacation is the norm in advanced countries. The employer isn't entitled to rule their employees' lives like feudal lords, there should be a balance between the needs of each. Unions help provide that balance by making the employees as powerful as the employers.

 

As for FMLA, roughly half of American workers are not covered by it at all.

Unless you can't. Getting fair wages via unions is much more viable. $20+ per hour at McDonald's, how does that sound? You would never get that without unions.

 

I can assure you we do not dream of American regulations in Scandinavia. They are actively used as an example of what not to do.

Not to be mean but 20 dollars+ seems excessive for a fast food worker. 

[Fnige]

24 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Not to be mean but 20 dollars+ seems excessive for a fast food worker. 

I think down is australia, its about $25 an hour for working at macdonalds