Labor

Eurogamer and VG247 report a Team17 spokesperson confirms CEO Michael Pattison, who joined the company two years ago after leaving PlayStation, is out. In 2022, Team17 was one of the companies that announced plans for an NFT project, before backtracking.

The plant’s 2,500 future workers are now pawns in ongoing UAW talks, despite Ford not explicitly saying so:

Bloomberg reports that annual increases for Apple’s retail employees, including AppleCare technical support, will be about 4 percent this year, down from eight to 10 percent last year. Bloomberg cites labor shortages, inflation, and unionization efforts as factors in last year’s higher increases. Guess things are back to normal?

After nearly a week of indie developers tearing down Unity’s new pricing policy that was set to take effect on January 1st, the company now says, “We have heard you.” Unity’s pricing scheme that was set to take effect in 2024 would have established a convoluted setup charging game makers for downloads and installations.

Nicole Carpenter at Polygon has an excellent report on workers in a Corsair warehouse in Duluth, Georgia, and their efforts to organize. In addition to Scuf, Corsair also owns Elgato and recently acquired Drop.

CEO Jim Farley and executive chairman Bill Ford both showed up to the negotiating table with UAW earlier this week in an effort to avert a strike, the company said in a statement. (UAW President Shawn Fain was a no-show, Ford says.) Ford wants to be seen as pulling out all the stops. But it’s also true that Ford employs the most UAW members of all the “Big Three” automakers, leaving the company uniquely exposed to the economic fallout from a strike.

In yet another sign that the workers behind some of Hollywood’s biggest movies are ready to fight to be paid what they’re owed, Marvel Studios’ VFX artists have unanimously voted in favor of forming a union under the IATSE.

Director Tim Burton told The Independent two days ago that Beetlejuice 2 was only a “day and a half” away from completion when Hollywood actors went on strike.

In an 8-K filing with the SEC, Warner Bros. Discovery says it’s lowering its earnings expectations by about $300 to $500 million amidst the writers and actors strike. The company now anticipates earning anywhere from $10.5 to $11 billion for 2023:

SAG-AFTRA members will vote on whether or not to authorize a strike against the gaming industry, the guild says, as negotiations with major companies have reached a “stalemate” over issues like pay, safety, and the “unrestrained use” of AI (via Deadline).

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) union announced that over 80 percent of the 18 in-house Visual Effects (VFX) crewmembers at Walt Disney Pictures expressed a desire to unionize. Their organizing follows a push at Marvel that started earlier this month and is in the midst of ongoing strikes by the actors’ and writers’ guilds.

After the AMPTP publicly released its counteroffer to striking writers yesterday, the WGA posted a more detailed update on their negotiations, stating the latest proposals offered by Hollywood studios still aren’t enough:

Some Amazon staffers are opting to leave after being told they need to relocate to work from one of the company’s main hubs, CNBC reports. The company made a big change to its in-office policies earlier this year, moving from a model where teams made their own decisions to one where employees are expected to be in the office at least three days per week.

Today UPS workers voted to ratify a five-year agreement negotiators reached with the company last month, which the union says is “raising wages for full- and part-time workers, creating more full-time jobs, and securing important workplace protections, including air conditioning.”

According to Variety, the number of layoffs is in the “double digits,” but it doesn’t affect the company’s content division. Warner Bros. Discovery has had a rocky last few months, as it put productions on pause due to the Hollywood strikes, and lost subscribers following the rebranding of HBO Max to Max.

This report from Wired features interviews with Amazon employees and the first aid staff in the company’s in-warehouse medical centers, who claim Amazon discourages injured workers from visiting outside doctors.

Months after workers at eBay acquisition TCGplayer — known for dealing in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, and Magic: The Gathering cards — won a vote to unionize, the company has finally recognized their union and committed to starting negotiations.