We need to defend our rights and freedoms

Successive governments have destroyed public services, attacked justice and individual freedoms, and shattered labour laws. By legitimising far-right ideas and setting up fascism as a possible alternative, they have created the current situation.

Last Sunday, the far right came out well ahead in the French European elections. In the immediate aftermath, the President decided to add fuel to the fire by disbanding the National Assembly.

Legislative elections will be held in less than 3 weeks: the first round will take place on 30 June, and the second on 7 July. These elections may well bring the far right to power in France.

The far right in power means being caught between a rock and a hard place. Wherever it is in power, whether abroad or in our city halls, it follows the same programme:

• deadly austerity, destruction of public services
• undermining freedom of expression, of the press, of association and of trade unions
• reducing access to culture, information and justice
• attacking the rights of women, LGBT people, foreigners…

Everywhere the actions and votes of the far right prove that it is the enemy of workers. In France, for example, it has voted against: pay rises, housing benefits, increases in hospital budgets, and all ecological measures. Nor is it opposed to raising the retirement age…

We call on workers to mobilise against the far right and to join the demonstrations and rallies taking place on the weekend of 15 June.

We encourage workers to vote in the next elections to prevent the far right from coming to power, to get involved in the election campaign, which promises to be intense, and of course to get involved in the trade union and anti-fascist struggle which will be the only way for workers to win in the long term.

Do you have any questions about the electoral process, proxy voting, voter registration, etc.? We encourage you to get in touch with union activists near you or to contact us.

Let’s defeat the far right today through unity at the ballot box. Let’s defeat it tomorrow by fighting for social policies. Let’s make it disappear forever through solidarity and internationalism.

Since October, the violence perpetrated by the Israeli far-right and Israeli army against Palestinians has only increased, reaching genocidal proportions by imposing an unbearable siege on the population in which famine affects everyone and the Israeli army’s bombings and murders by drones are constant.

In the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been split in two for several months now, what little news is getting out is more catastrophic than ever, as this part of the world is effectively cut off from all supplies of water, food and healthcare.

In the south, Israel has forced Gazans to move to Rafah and along the Egyptian border, then near the sea in an ever smaller area where the density of displaced population is only increasing. The Israeli army is currently attacking and bombing this area full of civilians, breaking ever more despicable horror records.

In the West Bank, the settlers and the Israeli army are exploiting the situation, in line with Israel’s colonial policy, to multiply murders, violence, destruction, land seizures and humiliation of the Palestinian population.

Israel, with the support or complicit indifference of the majority of Western countries, including France, allows itself to ignore the condemnations and arrest warrants issued by international legal bodies, and is actively campaigning to weaken international law.

Mobilisations for a ceasefire, an end to the genocide in Palestine and the release of all hostages have continued non-stop since October, despite repression by the French government. They have resumed in earnest in recent days.

In this context, we communicated in October about the links between video games and the politics of violence around the world. Today, the STJV is joining the unitary call initiated by the CGT, and is calling on video game workers and the population as a whole to come together and demonstrate en masse on Saturday 8 June.

We demand:

• an end to war crimes and crimes against humanity as named by the International Criminal Court
• compliance with international humanitarian law
• an immediate ceasefire and the lifting of the blockade on Gaza
• an end to the bombing and forced displacement of the population
• the protection of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank
• the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas
• the release of the thousands of Palestinian hostages held without trial in Israel, which the genocidal state wants to categorise as prisoners ;
• an trade embargo on settlements in occupied Palestine
• sanctions, including the suspension of the association agreement between the European Union and Israel
• an immediate cessation of all military cooperation with Israel and all arms deliveries
• a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis

While negotiations are taking place at Spiders on remote work and annual pay rises for 2024, company COO and SNJV (french employer’s organisation) president Anne Devouassoux took the liberty of demanding that the STJV change the company’s trade union delegate.

Negotiations at Spiders have been going on for several months now, and have been slowed down by the management’s attitude. The climate surrounding these negotiations is very tense. As our union delegate was on sick leave for 4 weeks, negotiations were necessarily put on hold during this period, but all we had to do was wait for his return to resume them.

Anne Devouassoux, who wants to roll back the freedom to work from home acquired within the studio and is offering workers “between 0 and 3%” pay increase, sent an unbelievable mail to our union and our delegate. In her letter, she tries to exert pressure on our representatives to put an end to negotiations altough they have no deadline. These actions constitute union discrimination against our delegate.

Before trying to intimidate a democratic and independent trade union, she could have turned to the STJV’s duly mandated negotiating delegation in her company.

Anne Devouassoux claims to represent employees and to be acting in their best interests, while at the same time threatening in a follow-up email to unilaterally terminate negotiations, which would lead to the imposition of rules that have been overwhelmingly rejected by Spiders’ workers, whatever the management is pretending internally. Whilst workers want negotiations to succeed, they do not want this to happen at any cost.

As an employer, and the president of an employers’ union to boot, Anne Devouassoux cannot claim to represent and defend the interests of workers, especially when she has explicitly refused to consult Spiders employees on the negotiations underway. Workers are represented by the elected staff representatives and the representative trade unions in the company.

We demand that she put an end to these gross manoeuvres, and that she respect employee representation, our trade union freedom and the principles of fair negotiation. The injunctions and allusions made in her letter and email are intolerable. Trade union discrimination is an offence under the French Labour Code and Criminal Code.

To ensure that negotiations run smoothly and reach a successful conclusion, we advise Spiders’ management to provide the delegation with the necessary information, listen to employees and accede to the demands of the STJV trade union section.

This advice applies to all companies. We will never give in to intimidation, and we will help all workers who are victims of it.

The current situation

For several months now we have been lamenting a particularly lack of commitment on the part of video game industry employers. They believe that social dialogue means imposing their conditions unilaterally and ignoring workers’ demands and rights. It goes without saying that this kind of position also has consequences for the quality of games.

In many French studios, elected workers and union representatives have voiced their disagreement and told their employers that this situation is completely unacceptable.

In addition, and despite the spectacular mobilisations that have taken place in many studios throughout France, without necessarily having been made public, we are not seeing any appropriate reaction from our employers.

Since it is absolutely out of the question to cease fighting for workers’ rights in the industry, and as we anticipate an escalation in conflicts, we believe it is necessary to do everything we can to strengthen our means of action. And among these actions we believe it is necessary to economically re-arm the social movement in our branch.

The STJV’s strike fund is fed by a share of its members’ dues, but remains largely dependent on donations. This is why we are launching a call for donations to the STJV’s strike fund.

This call is addressed to all those who have the means to do so, and who wish to support social action in our industry.

What will it be used for?

These donations will be dedicated to the strike fund, and exclusively dedicated to this purpose. They will be used to provide an income for striking workers, by going directly into the local strike funds run by workers.

Traditionally, strikers meet to decide collectively and democratically how to distribute the available funds, taking into account the information available to them, everyone’s needs and the future of the movement.

Why donate to our strike fund?

If you work in the video games industry

Then you probably already understand why we need to be prepared. We invite you to donate if, for example, you are not in a position to go on strike because your working conditions do not allow you to, but you have sufficient financial means. Or if you work alongside people who are involved in games production but you are not directly involved yourself, and you would like to give them strength.

If you don’t work in the industry, but play games

In that case, it is also in your interest that good working conditions are ensured in game studios. Companies in which workers’ voices are no longer taken into account are also companies in which the final result of the work done is likely to be mediocre.

Video game development is a collective effort that requires intelligent organisation, both to ensure that the people working on it don’t burn out and to ensure that the end result is correct. If you’re interested, we recommend a video (in French) on the Bolchegeek channel on this subject.

Whether we’re criticising dysfunctional working conditions or the mediocre state in which games are released, we’re talking about the same thing: absurd decisions taken against all logic, ignoring the warnings of those who actually work. Our response to these problems must be collective.

How can I donate?

To donate to the STJV’s strike fund, all you have to do is make a transfer to the STJV’s strike fund account, which can be found below:

IBAN: FR76 1027 8060 3100 0207 2930 259

BIC: CMCIFR2A

To simplify accounting and the identification of donations to the strike fund, please remember to mention “strike fund” in the description of your transfer.

March 8 is the international day of action for the rights of women and gender minorities, which celebrates the historical and current battles of feminism. Women and marginalised genders are and always have been present in social conflicts: March 8 is itself the anniversary of the 1917 strike by women workers in St Petersburg, which sparked off the Russian revolutions.

Last year, by force of circumstance, March 8 was included in the more global movement against the pension reform. The authoritarianism of the French government and the forced passage of this reform were a severe defeat for the rights of women and marginalised genders: the government’s own studies show that the negative impacts of this reform are doubled for women.

This year, March 8 is taking place in a very dramatic context. In our industry, we are seriously concerned about the consequences on women of the massive waves of layoffs that are currently taking place. Most of the jobs being eliminated are precarious, disproportionately occupied by people of marginalised genders, who will also have to endure discrimination when looking for work.

Women and queer people have also been instrumentalised for months to justify Israel’s genocidal policy against Palestinians. Our Palestinian brothers and sisters are being slaughtered before the eyes of the whole world, and they would have us believe that Israeli crimes are positive. What benefits do Palestinian women and queer people derive from starvation, disease, the eradication of their own people, their own deaths?

The very existence of genocidal colonial systems is incompatible with the freedom of people of marginalised gender. There can be no liberation of women and queer people without the liberation of Palestine. This March 8 will also be an opportunity to support them.

However, there have also been some improvements, for example:

• Spain was the first country in Europe to introduce menstrual leave. This long-awaited right has been the subject of a draft law in France and is one of the STJV’s demands, which has been systematically refused by companies.
• Thanks to the mobilisation of feminist movements across the country, Mexico has finally legalised abortion at federal level. Fighting wins.

Generally speaking, we can see that in France, despite all the obstacles, more and more people are speaking out. We’re obviously thinking of the film industry, but this is also the case all across society. The subject of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is finally emerging as a public social issue, for the benefit of all those who are subjected to it. We welcome and support these initiatives.

Companies and schools: inclusive in words, sexist in deeds

Since last year, the friendly facade of video game schools and companies has collided head-on with worker representatives. Everywhere, all it takes is a few questions to confuse management and confirm what we already knew: behind the words, there is nothing. No monitoring of sexist and sexual violence, no warning systems, no measures to combat discrimination…

By refusing to respond, but also by reformulating all the proposals and demands of workers and unions to remove any concrete and useful vocabulary in favour of completely meaningless managerial phrases, bosses are actively fighting to deny the existence of problems. They do this consciously, to prevent workers from rationalising these problems and being able to act upon them.

In response to our calls for clear and unambiguous processes to combat SGBV and discrimination at work, we are told that “the doors of HR or management are always open”. By brushing aside the role of management itself and denying staff representatives the ability to take action, they isolate victims and single out cases of violence, in order to undermine them and prevent a more global approach.

Far from being innocent or thoughtless, these practices of referring to an oppressive system (the company hierarchy) which has a clear interest in keeping violence hidden, are silencing victims and witnesses. The “open door” is at best a naive dead end, at worst discriminatory violence itself.

Unions, workers and workers’ representatives engaged in an ongoing struggle

Workers have tools at their disposal to combat SGBV and discrimination: it is the role of the CSE (~workers’ council) to monitor the integrity of management, to offer a practical, on-the-ground response via its anti-harassment advisers, to sound the alarm and not to lose sight of risk indicators. This workers’ representatives body has the power to report problems to health and safety inspectors and to initiate investigations through its reporting rights.

In companies where the STJV is representative after a victory in the CSE elections, the union sections address these subjects within compulsory annual negotiations on professional equality (and therefore gender equality). By law, this is a time to discuss the fight against discrimination, and to negotiate or even impose more by building a balance of power in favour of workers.

Problem: these negotiations are systematically blocked by company managers. Recently, comrades denounced the blocking of negotiations and workers’ representatives at Don’t Nod, and workers at Ubisoft went on strike in reaction to the absence of any real wage negotiations on the part of the group’s management. These elements made public are accompanied across the industry by a multitude of other struggles, including strikes, which have remained private for the time being. The discontent is widespread.

By blocking negotiations on gender equality, by postponing them on the pretext that it is a “less urgent” subject, by ignoring workers’ representatives, the bosses refuse to let workers express themselves or to listen to their demands. They prefer to ” observe the absence” of harassment, violence or discrimination and pretend that everything is fine.

Willful ignorance is not an anti-discrimination policy, but an extreme form of additional violence. It sends a message to victims of SGBV that the violence and discrimination they suffer does not count and will not be resolved in their workplace.

Tearing down existing barriers

Workers’ demands in the video game industry are simple, and it’s almost mind-boggling that we have to make them in the first place:

• company management must actually listen to workers, and therefore take the feedback from their representatives‧es seriously and respect negotiations ;
• concrete processes for gathering data and information must be put in place, so that they can then be provided to staff representatives ;
• this second point must be accompanied by the public availability of non-personal statistics and data, and in particular the introduction of pay scales ;
• to prevent the silencing of workers, real internal feedback, alert and investigation processes must be created that include worker representation bodies.

In short and to be perfectly clear: we demand that company executives stop caring about marginalised genders only to use them as a stepping stone for their company’s image, their personal careers or to maximise profits.

As we argued last year in a review of our industry and our role, the fight against gender oppression will be fought through unions. This assertion stems from the realisation that our rights will never be won without a fight.

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo is therefore calling for strikes in the video game industry on Friday 8 March 2024. We call on workers, unemployed people, pensioners and students from the video game industry to mobilise in companies, and to join the demonstrations that will take place everywhere in France on that day.

This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a video game publishing, distribution, services and/or creation company, whatever their position or status and whatever their company’s area of activity (games, consoles, mobile, serious games, VR/AR, game engines, marketing services, streaming, derivative products, esports, online content creation, etc.), as well as to all teachers working in private schools in video game-related courses. As this is a national strike call, no action is necessary to go on strike: just don’t come to work.