Following this week’s Microsoft layoffs of around 9,000 people – which led to cascading cancellations of projects like Perfect Dark, Everwild, and an unannounced Zenimax MMO – Communications Workers of America, the union that represents thousands of games workers across Microsoft, has confirmed that some under its umbrella have been impacted (unlike in early 2024, when they were entirely unaffected by a separate set of mass layoffs).
“We are deeply disappointed in Microsoft’s decision to lay off thousands more workers, including union-represented CWA members, at a time when the company is prospering,” president Claude Cummings Jr said in a statement published on CWA’s website. “We will be bargaining with the company over these layoffs, and CWA district vice presidents Mike Davis and Derrick Osobase will remain directly involved in ensuring that our members are supported and treated with dignity throughout this process.”
Workers within Zenimax’s QA union, who were granted anonymity on the basis that they were not authorized to speak publicly, said Microsoft provided the union no forewarning about the layoffs.
“Zenimax sent the union an email [yesterday], after they already started letting go/deactivating people in other departments,” one union member told Aftermath.
CWA and Microsoft initially boasted a mutually beneficial relationship while the latter was attempting to get its purchase of Activision Blizzard across the regulatory finish line. The organizations hashed out a legally binding union neutrality deal back in 2022, which CWA said at the time would “give employees a seat at the table and ensure that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard benefits the company’s workers and the broader video game labor market.” Multiple rounds of layoffs later, that relationship has soured, with CWA and represented workers issuing increasingly harsh critiques of Microsoft over the years.
CWA-affiliated workers also accused Microsoft of dragging its feet where Zenimax QA union contract bargaining was concerned, though the two sides finally came to terms at the tail end of May after nearly two years at the table. Now, only a month later, layoffs have led to a project cancellation at Zenimax Online Studios, the creator of Elder Scrolls Online, which has its own multidisciplinary union. Yesterday, Zenimax Online Studios president and Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor also announced he was leaving the company after more than 18 years.
“Right now, we are living through a moment of profound corporate consolidation and disruption,” Cummings said in today’s statement. “In times like these, union organizing is not just a tool for protections in the workplace; it is essential to workers’ survival, and one of the strongest defenses we have against unchecked corporate power. This news will not slow the movement for a video game industry that works for those who make it what it is today. Our strength is in our unity.”
