A union representing 300 video game workers at Microsoft said on Friday it had reached a tentative agreement with the tech company on the terms of the first union contract in the gaming industry.
The Communications Workers of America, which represents the workers, announced the contract covering quality assurance employees at ZeniMax. The gaming publisher, which Microsoft bought for $7.5 billion in a deal that closed in 2021, makes blockbuster titles including The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom.
The agreement includes a 13.5 percent wage increase for all workers and institutes new minimum pay for each category of jobs, the union said.
Employees in the gaming industry — particularly those who work long hours in quality assurance, testing games for bugs and other glitches — have been working for several years to organize over their pay and conditions.
Microsoft makes the Xbox gaming platform and has acquired a number of gaming companies, which have become one of its most important consumer businesses generating $23 billion in revenue in the past four quarters.
Tech companies have typically resisted unionization. But in its 2022 acquisition of the video game maker Activision Blizzard, Microsoft agreed not to oppose union organizing as part of its campaign to gain antitrust approval for the deal. That acquisition closed for almost $70 billion in 2023, and hundreds of workers there formed a union, although they have yet to come to a contract agreement.
Employees at three ZeniMax locations also formed a union in 2023, called ZeniMax Workers United-CWA, in a vote that avoided a conventional union election run by the National Labor Relations Board. The union then began negotiating with Microsoft.
Beth Allen, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America, said the lowest paid workers in the union at ZeniMax earn $20.75 an hour. That would jump to $25 an hour upon ratification of the new contract by union members, a vote expected by June 20. On July 1, an across-the-board wage increase will bring up that pay to $28.38 an hour.
“We appreciate the dedication and engagement of the ZeniMax QA team and the bargaining committee throughout this process,” Amy Pannoni, a vice president at Microsoft, said in a statement. “The tentative agreement represents a meaningful step forward and reflects a shared commitment to constructive dialogue and a common goal of fostering a positive workplace.”
The tentative agreement also incorporates a novel provision announced in late 2023 on the use of artificial intelligence, which is expected to upend some industries by replacing or assisting workers. ZeniMax committed to informing the union when its plans to use A.I. could affect workers, and “to bargain those impacts upon request,” the union said.
Karen Weise writes about technology for The Times and is based in Seattle. Her coverage focuses on Amazon and Microsoft, two of the most powerful companies in America.
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