It’s not often that any company recognises a new union without being compelled to, generally because they’d prefer their workers to have as few rights and as little pay as they can get away with. So kudos to Paizo Publishing for doing the right thing by recognising the company’s newly formed workers’ union of its own accord.
Here’s Paizo’s official statement (via Polygon), which they issued yesterday on their blog:
“Paizo is pleased to announce it has voluntarily recognised the United Paizo Workers union, which is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). ‘We look forward to working with the union to continue and expand our efforts to make Paizo a better place to work and to ensure that Pathfinder and Starfinder products continue to exceed gamer expectations for many years to come,’ said Jeff Alvarez, President of Paizo.”
This is a good thing, as are unions in general. But as cool as it is that Paizo has done the right thing by its employees now, it’s hasn’t always, which is why there was a need for United Paizo Workers to be formed in the first place — one of the first formations of its kind in the tabletop gaming industry. When the UPW announced its formation on October 14, it issued a statement saying it wanted to combat the company’s “inconsistent hiring practices, pay inequity across the company, allegations of verbal abuse from executives and management, and allegations of harassment ignored or covered up by those at the top.” Now that the United Paizo Workers have been recognised, it will elect bargaining representatives, who will then meet with Paizo management to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.
“In order to enact major changes in the workplace, we need to negotiate our first contract with leadership. One of our goals is to increase wages to better match the cost of living, and that is likely to be the first topic we tackle,” the UPW announced to its new union. Hey, workers? Unions are good. Make more unions.