Quality assurance staff at ZeniMax Studios went on strike earlier this week in protest of the company’s lack of remote work options.
The Communication Workers of America (CWA) said that this was due to a lack of progress when it came to negotiations between the union and Microsoft on a few key subjects; lack of remote work options and ZeniMax replacing QA staff with contractors. This follows the CWA filing an unfair labour practice against the company.
“What we want to get out of this is job security. We have members who wouldn’t be able to return to the office if they were forced to and would have to quit even in a hybrid model,” senior QA tester and union member Dylan Burton said.
“We have huge concerns about the way the company is utilising outsourcing and how that may impact the safety of our jobs over time. Our employer needs to meet us on these issues, and that’s what we hope comes out of this strike.”
Senior QA tester and ZeniMax Workers United member Juniper Dowell added: “Hopefully between the ULP and this strike we can convince Microsoft to stop dragging their feet and meet us at the table over our reasonable demands.”
PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor
Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.
