A few weeks ago, Toulouse-based studio Umeshu Lovers published its game Danghost. Over the past few months, we have been helping former employees of this studio, who have turned to the STJV for help in dealing with situations that our union considers unacceptable.

To date, three complaints have been lodged with the Procureur de la République (french public prosecutor) against the company and one of its directors, including charges of moral and sexual harassment.

Two cases relating to the execution and termination of employment contracts were also filed with the conseil des prud’hommes (french industrial tribunal), including the same grievances as the criminal complaints. The STJV will intervene voluntarily in these proceedings to defend the collective interests of the profession.

We hope that these legal actions will bring justice to the victims and put an end to the acts being prosecuted.

In all video game companies, the STJV defends and will defend all workers, whether unionised or not. We can carry out this kind of action thanks to our comrades’ dues and the volunteer work of our Legal Support and Assistance Committee.

Update 11/4/23 : A ce jour, aucune poursuite pénale n’a encore été engagée par le procureur de la république.

In response to the heinous murders perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October, the far-right Israeli government, with the support of most Western governments, including France, is carrying out a massacre.

The Israeli army is bombing the Gaza Strip indiscriminately, committing one war crime after another, and is preparing to invade it in a land and sea operation. More than 2 million Palestinians, the vast majority of them children, are besieged there.

As we write these lines, they have run out of drinking water and have barely any electricity, hospitals are running out of medical supplies and are being directly targeted by bombings, and food stocks are dwindling dangerously. Every single person held prisoner in the Gaza Strip is facing imminent death.

In France, the government is violating the law to repress all demonstrations and criminalise all forms of support for the Palestinian people. Everywhere, the mere fact of calling for peace is enough to be treated as a terrorist. Palestinian voices are repressed and treated as outcasts, and an entire people is considered to be terrorists. Suffering the consequences of Israeli policy, Jews all over the world are afraid of an upsurge in anti-Semitic acts. The current situation is extremely worrying in every respect.

We call for peace in Palestine, for an urgent ceasefire and for the total lifting of the siege of Gaza. We also call for an end to Israel’s colonisation of Palestine and recognition of its statehood, the only solutions that will bring a lasting end to the conflict and its deadly repercussions.

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Video games are complicit

Right now, our industry seems insignificant compared to the urgent need for immediate political action. But we video game workers do not forget the role that our industry plays in spreading the fascist ideas that are being implemented here before our very eyes.

Culture in general plays an important political role, and is used as a weapon by death peddlers the world over. Video games are no stranger to this, and even play a part in spearheading global militarism. Collaborations with the far right, the police or the army, and war crimes revisionism are creative choices decided by our directors.

In a more or less subtle and more or less conscious way, all representations glorifying manly heroism, conquest, murder, imperialism, colonialism, sexism… in all genres and all production sizes, help to strengthen far-right political ideologies.

We must fight, over the long term, to ensure that our medium ceases to work towards the oppression of peoples. On the contrary, we must do everything we can to make video games a weapon for peace, against colonialism and against nationalism.

Despite 6 months of campaign against the pensions reform, the government forced it through, putting the final nail in the coffin of democracy. The economic and environmental situation, already catastrophic at the time of the campaign, has only worsened since.

The population continues to get poorer: through pension and unemployment reforms, but also because of an inflation rate that has not been offset by wage rises. Last summer was the hottest on record and it doesn’t seem to be ending. It was marked by numerous natural disasters around the world. The world’s agricultural production is at risk.

Meanwhile, property owners and shareholders are getting richer and richer, while more and more proletarians have to forego medical care, food, etc.

As usual, and for partisan reasons, the government hasn’t proposed any concrete, long-term measures to alleviate these problems. But workers’ organisations have been proposing solutions for a long time:

• Wages should be automatically adjusted for inflation
• Gender equality in the workplace, in terms of pay and working conditions, must be enforced, and non-complying companies must be sanctioned
• The fight against climate change and the necessary changes in production must be placed directly in the hands of workers
• Government subsidies to companies must be reduced and subjected to strict social and environmental goals
• The power of employee representatives must be strengthened, so that they can force negotiations and monitor all these points within companies

We are well aware that these changes will never be handed over without a fight.

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo is therefore calling for a strike in the video game industry on Friday 13 October 2023, joining the europe-wide unions call. We call on workers, unemployed people, pensioners and students from the video game industry to mobilise in companies, general assemblies and actions that will take place everywhere in France during this period.

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.

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Why strike in the video game industry on October 13?

To protect our income

The video game industry is notorious for its low salaries compared to the level of education and the occupations performed. Some jobs are very poorly paid, despite the fact that most of them are located in metropolitan areas where living costs are high (see our latest survey). We are very much affected by inflation problems, just as last year’s wage disputes showed…

For a stable life, without having to worry about tomorrow

Recruitment under fixed-term contracts, periods of unemployment, poor health insurance, no career management… Video game industry careers are marked by precariousness, at the beginning for all occupations, and for their entire duration for some (see our latest survey). We are extremely affected by the pensions and unemployment benefits reforms, which will have a brutal impact on our lives.

To ensure that ecological issues are taken into account

Our industry is leading a frantic race to always improve the performance of electronic equipment, and therefore to replace it often. The environmental challenges we are already facing, and which are already causing a great deal of damage and death around the world, are forcing us to change. Video game companies will not get out of this race without pressure from workers.

To put an end to discriminations

Our industry is notorious as a place where discrimination, based on disability, origin, class, sexual orientation, gender… is rife. And companies do little or nothing about it, often preferring to deny the problems. We must constantly campaign to put an end to discrimination and allow everyone to work and live with dignity in the video games industry.

For better public services

Public services have been under attack from governments for decades, and many are close to breaking down. Access to essential services such as healthcare, welfare, job search, transport and housing is only deteriorating. If we don’t act, we will soon be deprived of services essential to our survival.

We are relaying this statement from workers at Spiders

Spiders studio is in a situation similar to that of Kylotonn (Kt-Racing): reduced to the role of a subsidiary that dare not speak its name. In practice, it cannot choose the orientation of its productions without the approval of the group, which holds all intellectual property on them, and is subjugated by Nacon’s management, which defines financing terms that give it total power, usually in the form of monthly payments.

At Spiders too, management regularly uses this situation to cut short demands for transparency and negotiation by hiding behind « negotiations between the studio and Nacon » from which workers and their representatives are conveniently excluded.

For more than a year, basic demands to comply with the law, respect social dialogue, be transparent and negotiate collective agreements have remained ignored or blocked by management.

These legitimate demands do however seek to respond to vital issues such as the organisation of remote work, formalisation of production organisation and internal alert processes, transparency on assessment processes, recruitment problems, etc.

The workers at Spiders express their solidarity with those at Kylotonn, who were on strike on July 11 and are on strike again today, and support their social movement. Since we are all in the same boat, our fates are closely linked. We’ll be keeping a close eye on any new developments at our two studios and will take action if necessary.

Following their example, we are also making our demands public. Unsurprisingly, they are similar to the demands made by Kylotonn workers. Our demands to the managements of Spiders and Nacon are as follows:

1. Begin, before 2024, the negotiations that have been requested for months by workers’ representatives:
   1. Agreement on remote work
   2. Pay scales
   3. Creation of an internal warning and reporting system
   4. Introduction of an anonymous performance evaluation system enabling managers to be evaluated by their teams
   5. Mandatory annual negotiations, never held despite legal requirements
   6. Standardised process for adapting working conditions
2. Automatic notification and consultation of the workers’ council on matters covered by their responsibilities, as required by law
3. Transparency on strategies and decisions for recruiting and retaining employees within the studio, to put an end to unequal treatment and recruitment problems that plague productions;
4. Consultation of all workers during initial game pitches, pre-production and mid-way through production regarding the creative aspects of the games we make
5. Full and complete transparency on negotiations between Nacon and its subsidiaries, on raises and structural decisions for the group and its studios, through the inclusion of a delegation of workers’ representatives from the group’s studios
6. Bringing minimum salaries in all of Nacon’s entities into line with the highest ones in the group

We relay this press release from workers on strike at the Kylotonn studio, on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.

In the majority of studios acquired by Nacon, the group :

• is the studio’s sole shareholder
• owns the entire intellectual property of any produced games
• funds the studios on a project-by-project month-by-month basis, giving Nacon real life or death power over the studios.

In practice, this means that the studios act as subcontractors, producing games on behalf of the group, as Nacon subsidiaries.

This structure enables studio and Nacon management to pass the buck whenever workers demand accountability, pay rises and social measures. Workers are preventing from finding intermediaries for discussion, thus cancelling any attempt at negotiation.

On Tuesday July 11, 2023, Nacon Group’s number 2, Laurent Honoret, has presented Nacon’s 2022-2023 balance sheet to Kylotonn workers. This annual event is the only direct point of contact between the studio’s workers and the Nacon Group.

The studio workers took advantage of this moment to ask Nacon if the group would commit to providing more resources for Kylotonn and the group’s studios in general. The aim is to give the studio employee representatives more room to breathe in their negotiations with the studio heads, and to prevent studio management from using Nacon as an excuse to avoid mandatory negotiations.

Laurent Honoret replied: « No ». He added that it was the studio management’s prerogative to negotiate more budget with Nacon. This statement shattered the excuses of Kylotonn’s management, who has always blamed Nacon for the lack of negotiation.

In reaction to this unsatisfactory response, which crowned a series of problems and sufferings long denounced by staff representatives, workers went on strike and left the room after presenting the following demands:

• Negotiation of a remote work policy with the trade unions
• Negotiation of minimum wages and compensation with trade unions, in place of unilateral management decisions that penalize a significant proportion of workers
• Immediate implementation by management of concrete measures to put an end to the pathogenic and authoritarian management style that threatens workers’ mental health and cohesion
• Negotiation of working conditions adjustment processes, which currently have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis with great difficulties
• Opening of compulsory annual negotiations and systematic negotiation with trade unions for all matters falling within their prerogatives
• Systematic information and consultation of the CSE on matters falling within its purview
• Full transparency on the negotiations between Nacon and Kylotonn to find out where the deadlock lies, by including employee representatives in these negotiations
• Same level of transparency for the group’s other studios
• Immediate wage increases throughout the Nacon group at least equal to those at Kylotonn after renegotiation.

In the video games industry, physical violence is often regarded as nothing more than an element of fiction, a gameplay mechanic and a marketing argument. But in other contexts, violence is anything but fictional: in working-class neighbourhoods in mainland France or in the French colonies, cold-blooded murders, along with racist attacks, insults and humiliations, are a daily reality, inflicted by representatives of the state over generations and in total impunity.

The recent murder of Nahel, a 17-year-old, by a police officer in Nanterre comes as a shock because its violence was captured on video, and the intention to kill cannot be questioned. But this murder is not an isolated incident, and the demonstrations that followed are a reaction proportionate to the policies of police repression, segregation and abandonment of the suburbs put in place by successive governments.

We can’t be fooled: such discrimination is part of a strategy to suppress the proletariat as a whole, and the non-white proletariat in particular. Even if at the moment, among video game workers, few of us come from working-class neighbourhoods, overseas territories or isolated regions, we are all affected. As workers, we have far more in common with the “suburban youth” than with the ruling class our bosses belong to.

We must not allow ourselves to be distracted by a government that is trying to make people forget about the murder and racism by fabricating other excuses for the problems, including when it is talking about video games. If we choose to look the other way, to focus on images of anger rather than on its roots and meaning, we are contributing to the fragmentation of our social class and allowing the most marginalised among us to be oppressed. Without solidarity, the state will continue to reinforce discrimination, undermine our rights and impoverish entire populations.

The impunity must end. Justice has to be delivered, not just for Nahel but also for all those we have never heard of. The people arrested in recent days during the demonstrations and sentenced by the justice system must be granted amnesty.

The STJV calls on all workers to always support the families of victims murdered by the police, to be aware of and relay the demands of marginalised communities and to help local organisations to the best of their ability. As a union, we will continue to fight for the replacement of policing with social policies, and for public money to be channelled to those who need it, rather than to the police and corporations as is currently the case.

The movement against the pension reform has been going on, in various forms, without interruption since last January, a sign of the strength of the opposition to this reform.

From the beginning, we have been explaining how harmful this reform is for workers, and in particular for the poorest and the elderly. It will lengthen working time, but will also have other disastrous effects: increased precariousness, poverty and unemployment, reduced life expectancy…

Carrying on with this reform is now also a threat to democracy. As its lies to promote it did not convince anyone, and as the extreme majority of the population was opposed to it, the government used many authoritarian measures to impose this reform with unprecedented violence. It was passed into law without ever having been subject to a vote, by a unilateral decision of the government.

In order to reject the forceful introduction of this law, and to cancel its effects, a bill to repeal the pension reform will be presented at the National Assembly on 8 June. Confirming its choice to pursue a fascist strategy on the imposition of this reform, the government has already threatened to use another article of the constitution to outright ban the discussion of this bill.

Two days before, on 6 June, the national inter-union coalition of all the major confederations is calling for a national strike and demonstration day to fight for the repeal of the reform. In addition to this repeal, we are demanding to work less: every week, by introducing a 4-day / 28-hour working week, and throughout our lives by returning to retirement for all at the age of 60.

Joining this coalition, the Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo calls for strike actions in the video game industry from 6 to 11 June 2023 included. We call on workers, unemployed people, pensioners and students in video games to mobilise at companies, general assemblies and demonstrations throughout France. The STJV will be officially present at several demonstrations.

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.

In the current context, we did not renew the call for strike action in the video game industry that had been in place since 20 March, but we are still monitoring the movement and are ready to mobilise, especially for the next important action days.

The STJV and video game workers have been fully involved in the struggle against the pension reform since January. This ongoing struggle has seen the movement expand to many other issues: destruction of unemployment insurance, racist migration policies, climate change, police repression, anti-fascism, and many others. It is also a time of change and experimentation, at least in the video game industry.

We’re using this moment to take a step back and reflect on the experience and lessons we’ve learned from the movement so far, and to draw up plans for the future. Hopefully, this will also help our comrades outside the video game industry.

A strong movement

The first thing to note is that, very quickly, this movement has seen a massive mobilisation on a national level. Since the beginning, the video game industry has responded with a mobilisation that has never been as strong, especially during the national strike days.

We have seen record strike rates in most companies, which demonstrates the potential for worker mobilisation in our industry. Participation in the STJV’s demonstration marches has also repeatedly and overwhelmingly broken the 2019 attendance records.

This mobilisation also extends far beyond the main hubs of the industry. While mobilisation has been constant in cities with many video game companies, it has also been regular in the so-called medium and small cities where video game workers are present.

Apart from the national strike days, we observe a smaller participation, but one that has lasted for many months, in local blockades and support actions for other campaigns and industries. The practice of strike action in our industry has thus been able to spread outside the national mobilisations.

Which confirms the unionisation of the industry and its importance

Since the beginning of the movement, many french unions have been reporting a significant increase in new memberships, and the STJV is one of them : the stream of new members have been really high, and this tendency has maintained itself for longer than expected. To us, this is a sign that unionisation of our industry as a mean of struggle is a method seriously taken into consideration by more and more workers.

In addition to new members, we also see many new workers taking an active part in the movement. For many of them, this movement is an occasion to learn, to get into politics, to get answers to their questions, and to take part in demonstrations and strike for the first time of their life. New STJV sections, such as those at Sloclap, Kylotonn and Virtuos, have been created during the movement, and many others are being created right now.

Taking part in local actions has also given us the opportunity to meet workers from other industries and unions, and therefore to create new interprofessional bonds. Our comrades have been able to create strong relationships with other workers, and to exchange stories, methods and experiences, keeping class solidarity alive.

Which opens to new practices

The actions conducted in support of comrades from other industries have then shown their usefulness all along, and have been recognised , both inside and outside of our industry. Experimenting new types of support, such as the « tour de grève » conducted by video game workers to support garbage colletor’s and incinerator workers’ picket lines around Paris, has been really positive.

Locally supporting other industries’ strikes to build up together a general and durable strike seems like a sound strategy. In the future, the STJV will consider how to strenghten and intensify this kinf of support to industries outside our own.

To give ourselves the means to fight in the long term, we have created, for the first time, a nation-wide strike fund. It gave us the possibility to compensate for hundreds of striking days, for many workers, allowing more precarious jobs to take part in the movement. Now that the process is in place and has been experimented widely, this strike fund will be made permanent to fill up this role throughout all social movements.

And shapes the futur of our union struggle

However, we have to admit the governement’s hasn’t yielded on its pension reform yet. We condemn their position and their lack of consideration for political options other than making workers work longer and systematically bypassing democratic processes.

If it is hard to talk about a victory on these points, it is on the contrary relavant for many others : increased unionisation, better image of unions, strong experience gain in our union and industry, new durable relationships with other unions and workers…

As a syndicalist union, the STJV is aware that class struggle is not a matter of months and that nothing is set in stone. Even if we are currently in a phase in which attacks from the ruling class against established social rights of the proletariat are neverending, each new brick of organisation will allow us to build future victories.

The future and the work to be done is clear :

• In our industry, build up a mass union by increasing unionisation and the expertise of our members, build up a balance of power in our favor notably through union sections, and use our new fighting experiences to win local victories.
• At the national leve, multiply relationships with other unions and workers from other industries, in order to increase interprofessional coordination and open up to new possibilites of action, to intensify and strengthen future movements.

The struggle is far from over. We will keep monitoring the movement and are ready to restart a national strike to support future actions. In the meantime, we will keep working on local and day-to-day union work, with the hope of better planning the next steps, ever onward to victory.

Renewal of the call until 8 May 2023

After an exceptional May Day, the biggest in France since 2002, where the video game industry was massively present in demonstrations and where the STJV again broke records for the size of its marches, the movement against the pension reform remains active.

Local mobilisations to prevent the government from continuing to live as if nothing had happened carry on everywhere and all the time, and workers are regrouping and planning the next stage of the movement without waiting for the next national date called by the intersyndicale on June 6.

In order to allow video game workers to do this planning work, to continue to mobilise and to strike at any time half a day or an hour in support of the various actions and picket lines, the STJV has decided to renew this call to strike until Monday 8 May 2023 included.

Renewal of the call until May 3, 2023

Since the start of the week, the government has been trying to project an image of a return to normal life by increasing the number of ministerial visits, and is once again counting on racism to make people forget about the pension reform. This was all in vain, as all the ministerial and presidential trips were disrupted, and many of them were blocked.

In the video game industry, we can note that workers have participated in actions everywhere, in particular on the day of local actions on April 20.

The movement will carry on every day, in particular with actions planned on April 28, World Day for Safety and Health at Work, all over the country. The STJV will take part and communicate about the day’s actions in several major cities, to encourage video game workers to join us.

Then will come the demonstrations on May 1, Labour Day. Trade unions and other political organisations will be highly active on this day. The STJV invites all video game workers to join these demonstrations, which will take place on a public holiday, to show their commitment to the democracy and collective welfare that the government is so keen to destroy.

In order to allow video game workers to continue to mobilise in demonstrations and to strike at any time for half a day, or an hour, in support of the various actions and pickets, the STJV has decided to renew this call for strike action until Wednesday May 3, 2023 included.

Renewal of the call until April 23, 2023

This week will mark the beginning of the 4th month of the movement against the pension reform. Still strong and enduring, it still has the support of 2/3 of French people.

The Constitutional Council has unsurprisingly validated the law. On his side, Emmanuel Macron took the opportunity to promulgate the law immediately after this partial validation, trampling once again the whole social movement.

This does not change anything. In 2006 the CPE law was implicitly withdrawn after its promulgation thanks to the protest movement that stood up to it. We will also continue until the law is withdrawn.

While waiting for the demonstrations on May 1st, Labour Day, when a very strong turnout is expected to show that the promulgation of this reform will not change our determination, it is very important to continue to mobilise locally in demonstrations or gatherings, in support of the workers on the picket lines, and to multiply actions throughout the country.

Days of action and mobilisation are already planned for April 20 and 28. The STJV will be participating and communicating about the days’ actions in several major cities to encourage all video game workers to join us.

In order to allow video game workers to continue to mobilise in demonstrations and to strike for half a day or an hour at any time in support of the various actions and picket lines, the STJV has decided to renew this call for strike action until Sunday 23 April 2023 included.

Renewal of the call until April 16, 2023

Once again this week, the mobilisation against the pension reform continued with the success of the intersyndicale day of mobilisation last Thursday, as well as with strikes, blockades and spontaneous actions that took place throughout the week in the country.

The meeting between the intersyndicale and Elisabeth Borne, on Wednesday 5 April, ended hastily following the Prime Minister’s refusal to address the subject of the pension reform. The government once again shows us that the only argument it understands is force.

The next institutional step is the decision of the Constitutional Council, which will be made on Friday 14 April, and may decide to censor the reform entirely or partially. Given that this Council is reluctant to challenge governments, it is important to once again show our determination to fight against this reform.

It is important to remember that, even if they were to validate it, laws such as the one on the Contrat Première Embauche (First Job Contract) have been withdrawn after going through the institutional “circuit”. It is therefore more important than ever to maintain the pressure and to show our rejection of the methods and the future that the government is selling us.

The social movement, firmly rooted in the long term, is starting to make the government retreat on the reforms it wants to impose on the country: this weekend, the decree on the presumption of quitting in case of an abandonment of job was postponed, and the strong mobilisation of young people has pushed the government to postpone the generalisation of the compulsory SNU (Universal National Service).

The attempt to dissolve the association Les Soulèvements de la Terre, the threats to the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (Human Rights League) and the planned massive police round-up in Mayotte remind us that we are also currently fighting for our fundamental rights.

In order to allow video game workers to continue to mobilise in demonstrations and to strike half a day or an hour at any time to support the various actions and picket lines, the STJV has decided to renew this call to strike until Sunday 16 April 2023 included.

Once again this week, all over France, in local actions, on the picket lines, and especially for the demonstration day on Thursday 13 April, let’s strike and never let down!

Renewal of the call until April 9, 2023

Driven directly by workers, students, pensioners, high school students… the movement is resisting the government’s indifference and the gradual disengagement of a few unions.

Demonstrations too large to be banned, government trips blocked, frequent blockades are helping us win the war of attrition. As a proof, and even if there is nothing to expect from it, the government even deigned to invite unions on April 5 to negotiate, something that had never happened since the beginning of the movement.

In order to allow video game workers to continue to mobilise in demonstrations and to strike for half a day or an hour at any time in support of the various actions and picket lines, the STJV has decided to renew this call for strike action until Sunday 9 April 2023 included.

The STJV particularly calls for strikes and demonstrations on Thursday, April 6 all over France and to reinforce the picket lines of requisitioned industries.

Renewal of the call until April 2, 2023

Since last week, the movement against the pension reform has evolved. The number of actions is increasing, new industries are joining the strike movement… while the government is sinking into its silence.

The government’s contempt, which dares to claim that the pension reform project is already beyond us, is matched only by the wave of repression it has unleashed. By resorting to illegal actions and letting the police unleash a storm of violence, it has expanded the scope of the ongoing movement.

In addition to obtaining the withdrawal of the pension reform, we must now broadly reject the permanent use of violence by the political system in place and demand in particular: the cancellation of measures to weaken unemployment insurance the withdrawal of the racist immigration law project, the withdrawal of the dystopian surveillance measures planned for the 2024 Olympics, the banning of giant retention basins projects and the dissolution of the BRAV-M.

In order to keep up the pressure and to allow video game workers to continue to mobilise in demonstrations and locally on various actions and picket lines, on March 25 the STJV decided to renew this call for strike action until Sunday April 2, 2023 included.

The STJV is particularly calling for strikes and demonstrations on Tuesday 28 March all over France, to support the campaigns mentioned above and to reinforce the picket lines of requisitioned industries. The STJV will be officially present at several demonstrations.

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Isolated and increasingly entrenched in its authoritarianism, the French government has once again activated article 49.3 of the constitution to forcibly pass the pension reform.

Deaf to the demonstrations, polls, unions, MPs, petitions, and the general population… it leaves us with no other choice than to take it to the next level and mobilise massively simultaneously through strikes, demonstrations and blockades.

As a result, and to continue the movement launched on March 7, the Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo is calling for strike actions in the video game industry from March 20 to 26 included to demand the cancellation of the reform and a reduction of working hours and years.

At the national level, the STJV will be present at the demonstrations on Thursday 23 March. But we encourage video game workers, job seekers, pensioners and students to take advantage of this call to mobilise immediately in companies and general assemblies, to join the local actions that will take place all over France during this period and to support other industries on their picket lines and blockades.

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.

For those who cannot go on strike, it is also possible to participate via the STJV strike fund.