The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) Game Workers Union, which represents over 1,500 video game workers in the UK, has just published its first-ever manifesto with goals to end unpaid overtime, improve job security, and raise pay for its members.
In a press release, the union said its manifesto was prompted by the rash of mass layoffs over the last two years, which it says impacted over 900 game workers in the UK in 2023 alone and is estimated to have impacted over 13,000 worldwide in 2024 already. Meanwhile, workers who remain employed continue to struggle with poor working conditions, such as crunch and low, unequal pay.
The manifesto, which can be viewed here, outlines the IWGB Game Workers' mission, core values, and planned campaigns. Its five core values are stated as democracy, solidarity and care, taking action, education, and equality and justice. And its campaigns are listed as follows:
- Union recognition: Have all members recognized by their employers
- Working hours and overtime: End reliance on overtime and crunch culture, obtain either a 4-day work week or 6-hour workdays without salary reductions, end "presenteeism", and guaranteed mental health days
- Compensation: Mandate annual pay increases, improve baseline pay, obtain studio profit sharing, end the gender pay gap, equal parental leave, residuals or royalties, and improved pension
- Accountability and transparency: Holding C-suite executives accountable for mergers, acquisitions, and redundancies, salary transparency, open book accounting, and publicly available diversity and representation statistics
- Job security: Better protections against firing and redundancy, better communication in the event of redundancy, better redundacy pay packages, AI regulations, one-month minimum notice periods, end abuse of fixed-term contracts, and forcing entry-level jobs to have entry-level job requirements.
- Equity andinclusion: Accessible working options, improved support for disability, neurodiversity, LGBTQ+, and mental health, enforcement of policies for handling misconduct, guidelines for inclusive language, removing barriers for workers coming from lower income brackets, more inclusive hiring process, compulsory DEI best practice training
- Training and education: Improved professional development support, and mandatory sexual misconduct and antitrust training for C-suite and management
- Contractual terms: Removing unreasonable non-compete and non-disparagement clauses, guaranteed ownership of personal side projects, guaranteed credits
It's an extensive list, but one the IWGB Game Workers claims it's ready to fight for across the Uk industry. As the manifesto reads in its third core value, Taking Action, "Our union is built on action – the responsibility of transforming the industry rests squarely on our shoulders. We will not wait around for someone else to build the future for us. We embrace our responsibility through participating in the union, through organising and being ready for direct action in our workplaces, and through galvanising our peers, colleagues, and friends."
In a prepared statement, Game Workers branch chair Austin Kelmore said, "The games industry has reached a tipping point. After another year battling this relentless onslaught of layoffs, workers are realising that things urgently need to change, and are unionising on a scale never seen before. The people who choose to work in the games sector are some of the most passionate, creative, dedicated people you’ll ever meet, and studio bosses rely on that passion to exploit us without fair pay, conditions or job security. Together, we can make sure the games industry’s future looks very different. Stable work, fair pay, a balanced work schedule – all these are well within reach if we stand together to demand them in unison.”
IWGB Game Workers membership has dramatically increased in recent years amid the surge of layoffs, having jumped by almost half between December 2022 and December 2023, and more recently reached over 1,500 workers. We've previously reported on how the ongoing industry mass layoffs have impacted workers everywhere, and the cuts have unfortunately only continued with Sony closing down Firewalk Studios and neon Koi just yesterday.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
