this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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In other news, Microsoft shuts down Bethesda game studios...
Microsoft has actually voluntarily recognized a gaming company union before. It seems they prefer to voluntarily recognize the unions and then fight them during the contract phase, not sure exactly why they do it this way instead of trying to stonewall the first step like most companies.
Maybe they try are trying to avoid some additional scrutiny by letting the union exist?
It's more likely a cost benefit analysis. Fighting the Unions is lawyer expensive and PR expensive. Gamers are noisy after all, when riled up. Microsoft is evil, but also like Trump, they understand optics.
Oh this could definitely be it, let the union exist, get the good press, and then fuck them hard in contract negotiations.
I think it might be more subtle than that, unions exist so that when negotiations happen they can fuck back, but we know Microsoft can strategise longer term than that. They pioneered "embrace, extend, extinguish". Embracing a union then trying to infiltrate and turn it into a corporatised union is another version of that exact same play.
Companies can leverage CBAs to "fix" pay scales well below CPI or other metrics by forcing extensive negotiation as a way to sell down an agreement. Similarly, they can use agreements to create separate classes, for example: the SAG/AFTRA agreement for voice actors with all the Gen AI exemptions.