Microsoft video game testers form first labor union in US

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Microsoft union overview: 

• Who: Quality assurance workers at Microsoft’s ZeniMax Studios voted to form a union, which Microsoft signed off on. 
• Why: The newly formed union is the first to exist under Microsoft. 
• Where: ZeniMax Studios is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. 

Microsoft signed off on a union formed by a group of its video game testers, marking the first time a union has existed within the tech giant.

Quality assurance video game testers who work at Microsoft’s ZeniMax Studios voted to join the union, according to Communications Workers of America (CWA), the representative of the workers. 

“A supermajority of quality assurance workers … have indicated that they wish to join ZeniMax Workers United/CWA … In accordance with its stated labor principles, Microsoft has recognized the union,” CWA said last week. 

Microsoft’s ZeniMax Studios is responsible for producing popular video games such as DOOM, Elder Scrolls, Quake Champions and Fallout.

The employees reportedly organized for months and signed unionization cards back in November before ultimately voting in support of the union in a voting process that ran through December, according to CWA. 

Microsoft reportedly promised to remain neutral upon learning that the quality assurance workers were thinking about and working towards potentially unionizing, a vow CWA says the company upheld. 

“Microsoft has lived up to its commitment to its workers and let them decide for themselves whether they want a union,” CWA President Chris Shelton says of the Microsoft union. 

Microsoft praised for ‘charting a different course’ by not undermining workers’ unionization efforts

Shelton commends Microsoft for “charting a different course” than other video game and tech companies, which he says “have made a conscious choice to attack, undermine and demoralize their own employees” when they tried to form a union. 

“Microsoft is charting a different course, which will strengthen its corporate culture and ability to serve its customers, and should serve as a model for the industry and as a blueprint for regulators,” Shelton says. 

In October, Microsoft revealed it was the victim of a data breach it said was caused by a misconfigured internet-accessible server and that exposed some of its customers’ sensitive information. 

Microsoft blamed the data breach on an “unintentional” misconfiguration that it said occurred on an endpoint “not in use” within the company’s ecosystem. 

What do you think of the Microsoft union? Let us know in the comments!.

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