- Three French Ubisoft studios are on strike today
- The workers demand better salaries and working conditions
- Reports of low morale among workers have been surfacing over the past months
After negotiations between Ubisoft and its workers for better wages fell through, the Syndicat des Travailleurs du Jeu Vidéo announced a strike across France.
Workers Go On Strike
Ubisoft is a company that has not once before embroiled itself in various controversies. The latest one seems to come from its branch in France where workers have announced a strike over “decent salaries” after negotiations with union organizations fell through recently.
Workers from three studios, each one based in Annecy, Montpellier, and Paris, respectively, have announced they will stop work at specified times of the day in order to make their demands clearer. The protest has been organized by the Syndicat des Travailleurs du Jeu Vidéo (STJV), a French gaming workers union.
“In recent weeks, Mandatory Annual Negotiations on salaries have taken place in several Ubisoft entities in France, and the STJV was obviously present. Despite concerted efforts by trade unions to find an acceptable compromise, negotiations hit a wall. Pretending a purely arbitrary cost reduction policy, management offered us a budget for increases below inflation, for the second year in a row,” a statement by the organization reads.
The STJV continues on to criticize the leadership of Ubisoft for the situation, explaining that the company still makes a profit, yet it does not want to increase wages in the face of global inflation. “The conclusion is obvious: the reduction in our standard of living, for Ubisoft leaders, is not a bug, it is a feature,” the STJV wrote.
Layoffs Exacerbate the Situation
The organization’s words may seem more impactful when one considers that the company has been undertaking some cost-saving measures recently. Perhaps the most impactful of these include the large layoffs Ubisoft had announced recently. These came at a somewhat crucial time as the company is currently working on two major titles, Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed: Codename Red Star Wars Outlaws, which are set to be released later this year and in early 2025, respectively.
Perhaps the workers’ protest should have been seen coming from afar. Reports of low morale and internal tensions in Ubisoft have been surfacing in the past couple of months, some of which are likely due to the aforementioned layoffs. The company removing some employees coincides with a trend over the last year or so that sees many big tech entities do the same. Just a couple of weeks ago, Riot Games announced massive layoffs, adding them to the growing list of companies that have done so lately.
Currently, Ubisoft’s upper management has yet to respond to the demands of the striking employees.
