A milestone

Consultation of the CSE (elected workers’s representatives) and negotiations with unions are going on at Quantic Dream. As is apparently customary for our C-suites clowns, David de Gruttola (known as David Cage) and Guillaume de Fondaumière are doing everything they can to stop worker representatives (CSE and unions) from… representing workers.

After revoking the CSE’s access to the studio’s internal mailing lists (in violation of established usage), preventing it from communicating properly with employees, they now oppose giving sufficient time and means of communication to our negotiation delegation.

We must correct what was previously announced: their redundancy does not plan for the destruction of 95, but 115 jobs. Being over the legal threshold of 100, the consultation period of the CSE should last 3 months, not 2. However, Quantic executives fail to explain how and why they are imposing a duration of 2 months for the procedure at hand, in our opinion in violation of law.

Pretending to rely on “social dialogue” on one hand, and making it impossible on the other: we know the drill. It didn’t work at Don’t Nod, it will not work for Quantic. Since they only understand power struggle, let’s keep mobilizing to save our jobs!

Last Thursday, over a hundred colleagues walked out a second time to protest against this despicable redundancy plan. David de Gruttola himself came around the picket line for a dozen minutes. Intimidation technique? We doubt he came in solidarity with the striking workers and those who risk losing their job…

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This redundancy plan is not only despicable, but also symptomatic of the studio heads’ utter disdain for the law, as they are not even doing the minimum to comply with the basic requirements of such a plan. While they pretend to do everything they can to save Star Wars Eclipse, they directly and explicitly target individual workers on Spellcasters. How? By completely distorting the legal concept of “catégories professionnelles”.

In a french redundancy plan (PSE), jobs are cut among “catégories professionnelles”, without knowing beforehand the individual workers who will be affected. Inside each category, individual criteria (“critères d’ordre”) will then be evaluated to rank workers and determine who gets laid off.

For Quantic’s executives however, a person’s “catégorie professionnelle” is defined by the project they’re working on, not their trade. They make-believe that absolutely unique working tools and methods are in use on each project, supposedly unusable outside of it. According to them, workers on Spellcasters would be incapable of working on Star Wars Eclipse without going through a lenghty training of more than 6 months, and vice versa. Thus, they are implying that workers would also be incapable of working on other video game projects outside of Quantic Dream.

This is absolutely ridiculous. But if we were to take it seriously, it means that the company is admitting to violating the French labour laws. Indeed, French employers have an obligation of maintaining their workers’ ability to work in their field, including in other companies, via continuous training. And Quantic is explicitely saying it did not oblige on this matter.

This is further enforced by the “pre-information letter” sent by french labour inspection administration, during the redundancy plan at Don’t Nod in 2024. We will not attempt to translate this as it is written with precise intent and french legalese.

La notion de catégorie professionnelle renvoie à des notions de compétence, et non d’organisation ou de classification. La notion de catégorie professionnelle correspond à l’ensemble des salariés qui exercent au sein de l’entreprise des fonctions similaires, supposant une formation professionnelle commune et ne nécessitant pas une formation complémentaire excédant l’obligation d’adaptation (Cass. soc. 18 mai 2011, n° 10-13.618 ; Cass. soc, 23 septembre 2015, n° 13-28.558 ; CE, 30 mai 2016, n° 387798).

Une fonction de même nature ne doit pas être interprétée comme une identité de poste, ni comme un statut général tel que cadre, ouvrier ou agent de maîtrise, mais comme une fonction présentant des degrés de responsabilités similaires, nécessitant un bagage de connaissances professionnelles communes.

Si la caractérisation de l’appartenance à une même catégorie professionnelle peut tenir compte des acquis de l’expérience professionnelle pour apprécier l’existence d’une formation professionnelle commune, c’est toutefois à la condition, notamment, que de tels acquis équivalent à une formation complémentaire qui excède l’obligation d’adaptation qui incombe à l’employeur.

This redundancy plan could only be rejected by the administration, which will control the “catégories professionnelles” and understand that the plan largely contravenes labour law and jurisprudence:

En cas de document unilatéral, l’administration doit notamment vérifier que l’élaboration des catégories relève d’une logique de compétences professionnelles et non d’une logique basée sur d’autres considérations telles que l’organisation de l’entreprise, l’ancienneté des intéressés ou s’il apparaît qu’une ou plusieurs catégories ont été définies dans le but de permettre le licenciement de certains salariés pour un motif inhérent à leur personne ou en raison de leur affectation sur un emploi ou dans un service dont la suppression est recherchée. L’administration doit en outre s’assurer qu’il n’y a pas d’intention de la part de l’employeur de procéder à un ciblage des salariés ou d’un service.

Dans le cadre d’un accord majoritaire, l’administration doit s’assurer que les catégories sont exemptes de tout caractère discriminatoire. La validation sera ainsi refusée si une catégorie professionnelle repose l’un des motifs discriminatoires prévus par l’article L. 1132-1 du code du travail, par exemple le sexe ou l’âge.

Les choix effectués pour la définition des catégories professionnelles devront pouvoir être justifiés, l’autorité administrative devant s’assurer de l’absence de toute rupture d’égalité entre des personnes se trouvant dans des situations identiques.

The studio’s management boasts about drawing up this plan in 5 days. Most likely with the help of a genius writer such as David de Gruttola. Unless it was written with help from ChatGPT? The company is indeed saying that the jobs destroyed could be replaced with subcontractors… or “generative AI”.

What we want

During negotiations, Guillaume de Fondaumière tried to convince us that a redundancy package of 5 000 or 10 000€ was better than what we obtained at Don’t Nod, which is to say at least 13 000€ with additional financial allowances for training, career change, moving out…

It appears that Quantic Dream’s executives are struggling with basic mathematics.

Quantic Dream isn’t in a dire economic situation. They like to brag about their back catalogue, which is supposedly very profitable. The company is also owned by NetEase, an international group reaping billions of dollars in benefits each quarter.

Our demands are simple, and they are just:

Applying the 3 months legal consultation period of the redundancy plan ;
Re-establishing the CSE’s access to the mailing lists ;
Giving sufficient delegation hours and means of communication so our union delegation can do its work ;
Re-assigning the workers on Spellcasters to Star Wars Eclipse, as the project is in dire need of reinforcements ;
If the company were able to prove that it needs to reduce its staff, opening voluntarily leave to everyone instead of doing layoffs ;
Reorganization of the studio’s creative direction team ;
Direct involvement of all workers in decision-making for the company and the production of Star Wars Eclipse.

Conclusion

What they’re trying to enforce is a brutal redundancy plan : a AAA PSE. But a discount one.

We fear the horrible consequences this plan would cause for the company, and moreover for the workers, if it where to come to life. The after-effects of a similar plan at Don’t Nod are deep and many, and the current state of the studio does not reassure us in the least.

If they persist with their plan, Quantic executives will have no choice other than to rework its “catégories professionnelles”, as Don’t Nod did in its time. Reworking them implies that all workers at the company could be affected. As the labour inspector justly said, these categories cannot be based on the company structure.

By pretending it could simply layoff Spellcasters’ team, they are lying and trying to divide workers.

In any case, Star Wars Eclipse’s production will be affected. Voices from all hierarchy levels are already denouncing the development hell this project has found itself into. Whether they like it or not, David de Gruttola and Guillaume de Fondaumière have crossed the Rubicon.

It is their responsibility to stand by the consequences, not ours.