Video Games

Ubisoft employees in Paris plan strike after CEO’s comments

Union issues a set of demands

Marco Wutz

Ubisoft employees in Paris plan strike after CEO’s comments
Ubisoft employees in Paris plan strike after CEO’s comments /

Ubisoft has recently canceled a bunch of games after a disappointing 2022 for the company. CEO Yves Guillemot sent an email to all employees on this occasion, in which he stated: “I am also asking that each of you be especially careful and strategic with your spending and initiatives, to ensure we’re being as efficient and lean as possible. The ball is in your court to deliver this line-up on time and at the expected level of quality, and show everyone what we are capable of achieving.”

This obviously came across as laying the complete blame for the company’s performance on the workers, casting the leadership in an innocent light. The employees did not take that well, to say the least.

Assassin's Creed Origins, a lone man walking in the desert.
Ubisoft Paris employees are preparing to strike after the CEO's demands to be careful with spending / Ubisoft

Responding to Guillemot’s email, the Solidaires Informatique trade union’s Ubisoft Paris chapter has issued a set of demands to defend the working conditions at the company, saying that the CEO’s comments could be an indicator for coming crunch cycles, cuts, and other anti-worker measures. The following demands were made:

  • Immediate 10% increase in all salaries
  • Implementation of a 4-day workweek
  • Transparency on the evolution of the workplace
  • End to disguised layoffs

The union also plans to hold a strike on January 27, 2023. Though short – all work will halt for just four hours – and limited to the Paris offices, it’s a serious warning shot for the corporate leadership at Ubisoft.

It also could possibly be an incentive for a wave of similar actions by the branches in North America, where game developers such as Proletariat have recently discovered a new-found taste for unionization to protect themselves from corporate overreach and exploitation.

Published
Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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