On Wednesday, hundreds of Bethesda video game workers, who work on titles like Fallout 76, Doom and Elder Scrolls Online, are going on strike due to a lack of bargaining by parent company Microsoft.
The planned strike stems from Microsoft’s alleged failure to meet at the bargaining table, with issues raised by employees in the CWA (Communications Workers of America) regarding remote work and the hiring of outside contractors who are not part of the union. This led unionized workers at Bethesda to file an unfair labour complaint against ZeniMax in October. The strike—initially reported by Inverse—involves the second-largest video game union in the U.S. (CWA), which was formed in January 2023 after Microsoft purchased Bethesda and its holdings in 2021.
The purpose of the strike is to bring Microsoft and Bethesda back to the bargaining table to limit the percentage of quality assurance testers the company outsources relative to the number of full-time workers in its bargaining unit. In other words, union members want the work that Bethesda is allegedly outsourcing to contractors. Additionally, the 300-plus workers under the CWA umbrella affected by the bargaining are seeking a better work-from-home policy. Currently, ZeniMax has a twice-a-week office requirement, with many employees experiencing denials for their work-from-home requests.
Quality assurance test lead Rhyanna Eichner said, “Everybody understands that this needs to happen. This is what needs to be done to move on. We’re all just kind of ready for it,” regarding the strike, adding, “They have continually given us their first proposal again and again, and it’s become obvious that our different mobilization tactics have not worked,” explaining the push to strike for the day.
Regarding remote work, Bethesda’s policy could likely force employees to find new jobs if the office policy suddenly changed to five days a week, given that current employees were hired under different conditions when remote work was “allowed.”
Microsoft/Bethesda has yet to comment on the current CWA strike.
