The nascent union provides a template for Australia’s labour movement, which has been shrinking for decades, to engage white-collar workers who have traditionally stayed away.
Australia’s first union for video game workers will be launched on Sunday, opening a fight for higher pay and better conditions in an industry that has faced accusations of gruelling stretches of unpaid shifts in “crunches” leading up to project release dates.
Scandals at major international game companies such as Activision Blizzard have spurred workers to get involved in the labour movement.Though its membership is small by the standards of the labour movement, Unite’s 360-odd members make up between a quarter and a fifth of Australia’s game development industry, which one count put at 1327 people last year.
Mitch McCausland, 33, a producer with Sydney’s Featherweight Games, said even when Unite was a volunteer organisation it had helped him enter the industry by connecting him with peers, and negotiated a contract with a previous employer to ensure it was above industry minimums.
The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association, which represents the industry, declined to participate in an interview and didn’t answer written questions. Its figures show an industry in Australia that has grown quickly in recent years, yet still employs fewer people than in 2006/2007, before the global financial crisis hit the industry.
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