Pierre T.
# AEGIS becomes first US video game union across multiple departments
Workers at Sega of America’s Irvine, California, office filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Thursday, January 27, 2022. The newly-formed union is called Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS) and is partnered with the Communications Workers of America. It includes a supermajority of 144 employees from various departments including Quality Assurance, localization, live service, marketing, and product development. With this, AEGIS becomes the first video game union in the US that encompasses workers from different departments.
The Verge spoke with workers at Sega ahead of the filing about their experience with the company, the unionizing process, and what it means to be a part of a growing force fighting for unionization in the video game industry.
According to AEGIS’ mission statement, “Our workers and our audience deserve games made by people who make a living wage. In our quest to reclaim our collective power, we have built bridges with fellow workers from across our company in an effort to understand our shared issues, and those that are unique to each department.”
While unionization efforts in the US gaming industry have typically been spearheaded by Quality Assurance departments, AEGIS is the first to consist of workers from various departments.
Organizing efforts at Sega have been ongoing for over a year. The remote work and siloed departments made initial efforts challenging. However, workers built bridges with colleagues from other departments to address shared and unique issues.
Torie Winkler, senior community manager, spoke about how a mutual love of games helped her and her colleagues to discuss and reach different departments interested in unionizing. Collaborative communication played a crucial role in developing the union’s current supermajority status.
Sega of America has joined an increasing number of game studios in America supporting unionization, including Activision Blizzard. Previously, there have been union drives at Activision Blizzard subsidiary Raven Software, the Albany studio of Activision Blizzard, and Proletariat.
Since Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it has vowed to be neutral in unionization efforts, a stark contrast to Activision Blizzard that has faced several labor complaints.
Neither Geiger nor Winkler reported experiencing any anti-union sentiments from management and hope that their parent company, Sega of Japan, will voluntarily recognize the union.
AEGIS is a result of workers coming together and building bridges across different departments to address shared and unique issues that ultimately lead to better working conditions.
