French Ubisoft workers on strike over salary
Update: Almost 700 workers joined the picket line following failed annual negotiations on wages, union STJV says
Update, February 16, 2024: Almost 700 Ubisoft workers joined the picket line earlier this week to demand better wages.
That's according to union STJV, which had called for the strike to take place on Wednesday, across the French cities of Paris, Montpellier, Annecy, Lyon, and Bordeaux.
Original story, February 14, 2024: French game workers union STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo) is organising a strike today across three Ubisoft studios.
Workers were invited to join the picket line in Ubisoft's Annecy and Montpellier studios from 9am, and in Paris' studio from 2pm, the union said.
STJV called for the strike earlier this month, following the failure of the annual salary negotiations at Ubisoft.
"Despite the union's efforts to find an acceptable compromise, negotiations hit a wall," the union said in its statement. "In order to hit arbitrary cost reductions targets, management offered a budget dedicated to raises that would be lower than inflation for the second year in a row."
The union also pointed to Ubisoft's H1 FY24 financial report, during which CEO Yves Guillemot said results were "well above expectations." In the company's most recent report, looking at the nine months ended in December 2023, Guillemot talked of "positive momentum" as revenue was down 4.1% year-on-year and net bookings up 1.6%.
Union representatives working at Ubisoft talked to French publication Gamekult to shed some more light on the strike, with one Ubisoft Paris worker explaining: "The strategy chosen by management aims at saving €200 million over the next two years among production costs. We are contesting this strategy.
"When you're a game development studio, the right way to make money is to make video games in the best possible conditions so they can be of the right quality. It's not by skimping on the workers who build them, or by saving on the tools they use, that you're going to make money in a capitalist context. Workers want to be proud of what they ship. And overall it's not by struggling to pay your rent or by working in poor conditions that you can work properly."
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