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Roughly 150 workers at Sega of America will receive annual pay increases, notifications ahead of layoffs and additional benefits
By Jason Schreier
March 27, 2024 at 1:00 PM EDT
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Workers at Sega of America, a division of Sega Sammy Holdings Inc., have became the first employees at a major North American video-game company to ratify a union contract, a move that may accelerate a burgeoning labor movement in an industry known for widespread instability among its work force.
The contract, ratified Tuesday, covers around 150 people across marketing and other departments at the division’s offices in Southern California. Workers will receive minimum yearly pay increases of 4% in 2024, 3% in 2025 and 2.5% in 2026 as well as a number of other benefits, Catalina Brennan-Gatica, a representative for the Communications Workers of America, said in an interview.
“This is a watershed moment for workers in the video game industry,” Brennan-Gatica added in a statement.
Unionization has been slow to come to the North American video-game industry but has picked up momentum in recent years as workers have sought contracts at studios such as Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax, both owned by Microsoft Corp. The effort has been particularly popular among quality assurance testers, who say they are overworked, underpaid and treated as expendable by the multibillion-dollar companies that employ them.
The contract at Sega, the maker of Sonic the Hedgehog, may lead to additional unionization efforts as employees across the industry begin to see tangible results from the labor movement. Other provisions in the contract include a just-cause policy, codified benefits such as health insurance and a commitment to credit everyone who worked on a project.
The contract also requires Sega to give notice ahead of layoffs and to offer a minimum of two-weeks’ severance to impacted employees, capped at eight weeks. Thousands of video-game workers have lost their jobs this year, including at Sega.
. Good for those at SoA tho.