Osmose

fuck this shit fuckin bullshit I hate this

the worst part is a little voice in my head "if you had stayed on for 4 more months you would've gotten a whole year of health insurance, but you were weak"

I've seen a number of articles that say unions can't prevent or stop layoffs and I want to dispel that myth. There's a long history of workers in unions fighting back against layoffs, even in the games industry!

In some countries like the UK, companies are legally required to negotiate with unions they recognize as part of redundancy processes. This alone can prevent a ton of job losses or halt redundancy proceedings entirely.

Even outside of legal frameworks (which I don't recommend relying on heavily), unions can stop redundancies by workers pushing back through collective action. Striking, occupying workplaces, campaigns, and other similar actions can force executives to change their minds about layoffs.

How many times have executives made ridiculous short-term decisions that workers knew would result in layoffs? Workers in unions can prevent those layoffs by contesting the short-term decisions when they happen instead of years later when executives decide to do layoffs. The knowledge alone that workers are willing to disrupt work will give executives pause about making short-term decisions or choosing to lay off workers.

Preventative measures are incredibly effective. After all, the best layoff is one that never happens. All in all, workers in unions can and have prevented, stopped, and/or reduced the amount of people laid off. It's definitely possible and has been done!

If you're frustrated by the number of layoffs the games industry has had this past year, I'd really recommend joining a union and getting active in your workplace. It's the single best way we can push back against the mass layoffs our industry experiences every year.

Glitch had layoffs after we unionized but before we finished negotiating a contract. The layoffs themselves were not retaliation, but instead a result of a poor monetization strategy vs the costs of running Glitch.

After the layoffs were announced CWA negotiators helped us work to improve the severance offers that Glitch originally offered to affected employees, including increasing severance pay and getting Glitch to pay for COBRA health insurance coverage (I can't remember if it was half a year or a year).

Even if you're skeptical of union effectiveness on "soft" issues (i.e. affecting company strategy), on a purely financial level the Glitch union protected more money and benefits for individual workers at Glitch than we ever paid in union dues.