Months After Microsoft Layoffs, Zenimax Unions Never Stopped Fighting For Impacted Workers

Back in July, Microsoft laid off 9,100 employees across the company, in particular gutting numerous games teams and leading to a cascade of high-profile project cancellations that included Perfect Dark, Everwild, and an unannounced MMO from Elder Scrolls Online creator Zenimax Online Studios. In the months following, unionized workers at the latter – as well as the Zenimax QA union, the first video game studio union at Microsoft – have refused to simply roll over and accept their fates. 

Beginning in mid-July, Zenimax QA union members picketed outside the studio’s Rockville, Maryland office on a weekly basis until late August, just before unionized employees’ final day in early September, to show support for laid-off colleagues.

"Our hopes always are to show the company that there's power in the collective and that we can all come together as a company and show them that not just one person doesn't like what they're doing, but that the whole lot of us don't like it,” QA union member and, as of early September, former associate tester Aubrey Litchfield told Aftermath. “To show solidarity amongst all of our members as well. I think it's very important in that there's power in having that collaboration with all of the other unions that are part of our company."

"We had a great turnout,” union member and now-former QA tester Jessee Leese, also impacted by recent layoffs, told Aftermath. “It was really great to see coworkers on the line,  both people who had not been affected by the layoffs and were standing in solidarity and then people like myself who had been affected by the layoffs, because yeah, that's the best thing I can be doing with my time right now: picketing. ... This is definitely not the last we've seen of layoffs – not at Zenimax or in the larger industry of games and technology – so it's going to be an ongoing effort for game workers to continuously push back against the layoff machine that is the games industry."

As part of their contract, which was finalized shortly before the layoffs, the QA union had previously secured a stipulation that Microsoft had to let those affected stick around and bargain for 60 days instead of just laying them off immediately. In addition to a contractually obligated severance package calculated off higher base pay than the days prior to the union’s existence, that meant more pay and runway in the intervening period.

“Without the union, they could have just laid us off, and our last end date would have been July 2, and that would have been it,” said Litchfield. “But the union allows us two months of bargaining, so it allowed us 60 days to negotiate with the company to attempt to get better severance packages and all of that stuff. Granted, the company is going to do what it wants to do in the end, but it at least allowed our members to have that two months of a continuance period where we were able to keep getting paid during that time."

While Microsoft proved difficult to budge in terms of severance and rehirings for full-time employees, the union was able to secure a better severance deal for contractors, who – until the formation of a contractor union in 2023 and subsequent bargaining that got contractors upgraded to temporary Microsoft employees – were not even told when their contracts were scheduled to conclude. "What we were told when we were hired was [to] just keep logging in until you can't log in anymore,” said Litchfield. “Nobody actually knew when their contract ended. It would just end, and then you'd get a phone call."

Recent bargaining on the part of the QA union has improved things even further.

"We have guaranteed and pretty generous severance that everyone will be receiving, including temp workers, [of which] I am one," said Leese.

The multidisciplinary Zenimax Online Studios union, which is still bargaining for a contract, managed to build on the QA union’s contract structure, effectively winning laid-off colleagues two additional months of pay as a result of ongoing negotiations.

"We were able to extend out [laid-off workers] impacted period, because their timers didn't even start until we signed the memorandum of understanding [about the layoffs],” Alyssa Gobelle, senior motion graphics artist and Zenimax Online Studios union bargaining committee member, told Aftermath. “Even their 60 days of continued employment and pending termination notices didn't happen until that ink was signed. So instead of starting July 2, that started mid-August, so that essentially bought them a lot more weeks of pay and healthcare security while we figured this out. That's sort of a soft win in a way, because obviously [it's] not in the contract, but it was an impact of us being able to bargain. We were able to buy them more time."

As a result, ZOS union members who lost their jobs in July technically remain employed until October. The ZOS union also squeezed an additional four weeks minimum severance out of Microsoft, bringing the total up to eight weeks across the board. On top of all that, the union also secured 18 months of recall rights for everyone on the canceled Zenimax MMO that lost their jobs, meaning that if there’s a relevant job opening at Zenimax Online Studios, there’s now a chance that workers who’ve been let go will get their old jobs back – as opposed to the company throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The Zenimax Online Studios union managed to save a small handful of jobs, as well. 

"25 people were given the chance to transfer over [from the canceled MMO to Elder Scrolls Online],” said Gobelle. “I don't think everybody took it, but those that did take the transfer option to come back, they're all back."

"We were able to bring back temporary employees that were for some reason furloughed and then told basically that they would get a paycheck and not do work,” she added, referring to a different group of employees. “They are at least able to work out their contracts and depart with proper dignity."

Recalls might prove necessary, because Microsoft absolutely took the hatchet to Zenimax. QA lost 105 people – 75 employees and 30 contractors, amounting to a third of total QA – according to Litchfield, while Zenimax Online Studios’ headcount was reduced by over 200, according to Gobelle. Another Microsoft worker who was granted anonymity as they are not authorized to speak publicly on these matters told Aftermath that higher-ups have said internally that a total of 1,600 positions were eliminated from Microsoft’s gaming division during July’s layoffs. Litchfield and Leese told Aftermath they’d heard the same.

Aftermath reached out to Microsoft and Zenimax for additional details but did not receive a response as of this publishing.

"Regardless of what the employer claims, they really cut too many people with this last round of layoffs,” said Leese. “There are multiple teams that are in overtime for the first time in ages, and it's explicitly because of these cuts. We're seeing a lot of people who are scrambling to get things done in ways that they weren't previously. There's just too many tasks for not enough hands. Deadlines are definitely going to be missed in order for the remaining workers to be keeping up with this. It's going to result in cost ineffectiveness and burnout overall." 

The two Zenimax unions are now helping those who’ve been let go find ways to land on their feet.

"There's Discord channels dedicated to everybody that was affected, from 343 Studios to Zenimax to all of the Xbox divisions,” said Litchfield. “We all come together to help each other look over resumes and post jobs that we might be able to give references [for]. … There's this community piece of it that I think is really not talked about enough as far as unions go. A lot of the time when you're laid off, you just get laid off, and that's that. You never talk to your coworkers again. There's this sense of community that's brought on by having a union and believing in your cause and knowing that one day, things are going to change. You're not going to stand there and let a company take advantage of you." 

"We have so many meetups and individual connections with each other, understanding people on a personal level and understanding people's needs,” said Leese. “We've been there for each other as emotional support [and] financial support when people are saying that they are going to need help with things. I've seen so many people be very quick to say that they're willing to fund some medical emergencies or family emergencies – general issues people need help with. We take care of each other."

Which is important, because it’s rough out there.

"The job market is abysmal right now,” said Litchfield. “The current administration likes to say it's booming, but it's not. It's horrible. [Microsoft] did provide us with job transitioning services. However, it's a little laughable because they just push LinkedIn a lot and cold-connecting with people on LinkedIn. ... Everything is powered by AI right now, so our resumes go through an AI machine that filters out whether we're good candidates or not, and they look for keywords. So it's been very helpful to get people [in our union Discords] that are like 'No, no, you need this [keyword] in there.'"

Leese is broadening her horizons beyond the video game industry. Organizing, she’s realized, is where her passions lie.

"I decided when we unionized that nothing I have ever done, including the extremely amazing and exclusive industry of video games, compares to the satisfaction of watching workers get what they deserve,” she said. “So I have decided to move into full-time union organizing, and I am pursuing job opportunities that relate to that career goal rather than video game work."

She'd like to continue helping game workers organize if she can, though.

"This industry is so special, and it has so many new things that we as workers can take hold of and grab by the horns and make decisions about like AI, outsourcing, layoffs, crediting policies, and transparency at studios,” Leese said. “We can decide what the standards are. We don't have to stand by and let the employers decide one wave at a time."