How to beat the boss? Understanding unionisation in the games industry

How to beat the boss? Understanding unionisation in the games industry

This two-part presentation includes an academic paper by Jamie Woodcock and an accompanying talk by Sarah Bewley of the IWGB Game Workers Branch. about their experience of unionising with IWGB.

There has been a wave of unionisation in the games industry since GWU (Game Workers Unite) was formed in 2018. As this social movement spread and developed, game workers have sought to unionise in different local contexts, involving a range of collective actions. Seven years have now passed since the birth this movement for unionisation started at the international level and then developed in different ways at the national level as game workers attempted to unionise. There are emerging models of unionisation that have adapted both to the national industrial relations context, as well as the chosen union that game workers have joined or formed alliances with. While in some cases, workers have been able to win recognition and begin negotiating, in other cases, game workplaces have proven to be much more hostile to unionisation. The paper builds on the Game Worker Solidarity (GWS) project, which is mapping and documenting collective movements by game workers. This started as a collaboration between academics and game workers, particularly seeking to collect and preserve an emerging history of game worker organising. The talks will discuss case studies of game worker organising, exploring the relationship to the labour process, forms of collective action, employer responses, and unionisation in the games industry. Drawing on a range of examples from GWS, as well as a particular focus on Britain, the talks develop an argument about the changing nature of game work, what happens when game workers meet unions, and the implications of this for arts and cultural workers – as well as non-union workers more broadly. The case studies demonstrate how social movements can play a reciprocal role in supporting the unionisation of non-union sectors like the games industry, opening new pathways for the entry of workers to the union movement. While the industrial relations regimes and the characteristics of unions shape the unionisation process, it also draws attention to other features of the labour process and class composition of game workers that shape their ongoing struggles.

This will be a hybrid meeting held at Manchester Metropolitan University and also accessible via Zoom

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Host or Publisher Stephen Mustchin / Manchester Industrial Relations Society