Workers on the Magic: The Gathering Arena team announced their union last month with the Communications Workers of America, the parent union of numerous video game developers. Owner Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast could have voluntarily agreed to the union, but instead the issue is going to an official vote with the National Labor Relations Board in June. Like so many owners before it, Wizards has been spreading the usual anti-union talking points, here in letters sent to workers’ homes. It’s the company’s right to share its perspective, but here’s why that perspective is bullshit.
Multiple employees eligible to join the Arena union, called United Wizards of the Coast, have shared a letter from Wizards containing the company’s thoughts on the union. Like Starbucks, Amazon, REI (where union workers have called for a boycott through May 25), and so many others, Wizards’ letter talks about the union as a third party coming between workers and management, and it warns that employees could lose benefits they currently have as part of the bargaining process. Some workers who shared the letter on social media wrote that it comes after two weeks of regular emails trying to dissuade them from unionizing.
Xib (They/Them) IS UNIONIZING!!! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
The letter reads in part:
If employees choose union representation, the CWA will serve as the union’s representative in collective bargaining with the Company. That process typically involves negotiating over wages, benefits, scheduling, and other terms and conditions of employment. Outcomes are not predetermined and depend on negotiations between both parties. All the benefits and perks you currently enjoy would be on the bargaining table for both parties to negotiate, based on what’s most important to them. That means you could end up with more, the same or less than you have now…
If employees do not choose union representation, Wizards of the Coast would continue to work directly with employees on workplace matters, just as it does today, with a much greater degree of flexibility than a typically rigid union contract…
We believe your voice is strongest when it is heard directly. Not through a third party.
It’s true that there’s no guarantees in bargaining, and that workers could in fact end up with less than they currently have. But that’s not something that inherently comes along with unionizing–that’s the company actively deciding to take benefits away, something it could currently do without a union and would simply be using bargaining as a pretext for. In fact, one Arena developer shared on Bluesky that one of the reasons they were inspired to organize was because Wizards changed its remote work policy, requiring them to move across the country or to a more expensive state to remain employed. (Changes to remote work have been one of the big drivers of unionization and union action among video game developers.) If the union is successful, the company wouldn’t be able to unilaterally change working conditions like remote work; it would have to negotiate with the union over the decision. There’s no guarantee unionized employees would get what they want, but they’d have more of a say, and the opportunity to directly influence their work situation, than they would without a union.
Calling a union a “third party” is another common talking point from companies trying to scare workers away from unionizing. It’s another myth that’s based in a kind of a truth: It’s true that when a worker is represented by a bigger union like the CWA, members of that parent union are sometimes present during conversations with upper management. But this doesn’t mean that some union goon swoops in any time you want to talk to your boss. During bargaining, parent unions usually bring in their own staff; in my experience as a union rep at Gawker Media, our bargaining was led by a union organizer and a labor lawyer from our parent union, the Writers Guild of America East. These people were experts in labor law and contracts, and could bargain more effectively with the company than we, a bunch of bloggers, ever could. But everything they did and said was guided by us and our priorities, and Guild staff were just there to help us come to an agreement with the company. They also helped us figure out what we even wanted in the first place; I will forever be indebted to our incredible WGAE organizer in the endless conversations leading up to bargaining, who could run a meeting with a mastery I literally still dream of achieving.
Outside of bargaining, union representatives can also be present in more intimate conversations between workers and management. Unionized workers have a right to have a union representative present during meetings that might be disciplinary, something known as Weingarten Rights. This can be a fellow union member (I was a Weingarten rep at Gawker) or a parent union employee. But they aren’t there, as Wizards intimates in its letter, to prevent workers from having “a direct working relationship with leadership;” they’re there to witness and document the conversation, prevent management from violating labor laws or the union contract, and make sure the worker knows their rights. Rules govern how the rep is allowed to participate, and they in no way stand between a worker and their boss.
Companies love to call unions “third parties,” when in fact the union is the workers. Everything that happens is guided by those workers, who know best what’s right for them and their workplace. That’s not to say that parent unions don’t have their own priorities or tactics, and that those don’t sometimes clash with what workers want; smaller unions can and do have conflict with their parent unions. But it’s a far different situation than anti-union companies make it out to be when they’re trying to scare workers away from unionizing, and workers have far more power and autonomy over their working conditions with a union than they have without one.
Labor laws govern what employers are allowed to do and say in response to union campaigns. Microsoft’s now-expired neutrality agreement with the CWA meant the company wouldn’t engage in the common kind of anti-union campaign that Wizards is, which did away with some of the barriers and tension that can come with the early stages of unionization. (The agreement didn’t prevent the company from dragging its feet in bargaining, of course.) It’s disappointing to see Wizards take the approach it’s currently taking, even if it appears to be following the law in the language of the letters by simply telling workers they could lose benefits as opposed to threatening to take them away. But, again, this wouldn’t be because the union is a bad idea; it would be the company showing its true colors at the bargaining table, the very situation workers need a union for.
“A Union is simply a group of workers who have organized together for collective bargaining and representation,” United Wizards of the Coast wrote on Bluesky recently. Companies have a self-interest in convincing workers that unions are something bigger, scarier, or more complicated–that they are strangers coming in to gobble up workers’ paychecks in union dues, make every workplace decision take forever, and institute arcane rules. I’ll be honest that I held some incorrect views about how unions functioned until I joined one myself, and even then I didn’t truly understand how they worked and what they could do until I got more actively involved. Companies only benefit from these misunderstandings, and workers only benefit from breaking them down. I won’t say that unions are perfect, but they’re one of the strongest tools workers have to improve their workplaces. Good luck to the Arena team in their upcoming vote.
