Five French Ubisoft Unions Call For Massive International Strike Over 'Cost-Cutting' and Ending of Remote Work

Five French unions representing Ubisoft workers "have called for a 'massive international strike'," reports the gaming news site Aftermath. The move follows a "series of layoffs and cancellations" at Ubisoft, the article points out, plus what the company calls a "major organizational, operational and portfolio reset" that will lead to more layoffs and cancellations announced last week. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot even sent an end-of-day message warning that management continues to "make difficult decisions, including stopping certain projects" and "potentially closing select studios," an earlier article points out:Slipped in between the grand vision and subtle threats was the reversal of a popular hybrid work-from-home policy that would have a direct impact on everyone working at Ubisoft. Staff would be back in the office five days a week, but with the promise of a generous number of work from home days. "The intention is not to question individual performance, but to regenerate our collective performance, which is one of the key elements in creating the best games with the required speed," Guillemot wrote. There was immediate confusion and frustration. One French union representing Paris Ubisoft developers called for a half-day strike. "It is out of the question to let a boss run wild and destroy our working conditions," Solidaires Informatique wrote in a press release. "Perhaps we need to remind him that it is his employees who make the games...." [The article notes later that "There's concern that these shifts could make it harder for Ubisoft to recruit the talent it needs to improve, or even worse, actively drive away more of the company's existing veterans."] Particularly galling about the new return-to-office policy for some Paris staff was that they had only recently finished negotiating to ensure two days of work-from-home per week. "It's only been six months since the situation was more or less 'back to normal' and now it's shattered to the ground by Yves' sole decision with zero justification, zero documents, zero internal studies proving RTO increases productivity or morale, nothing," one developer told me. The specific details for the rollout of the return-to-office policy have yet to be communicated to everyone, could vary team by team, and might not go into effect for much of the year. The "massive international strike" would take place from February 10-12, Aftermath notes, citing the five French unions representing Ubisoft workers (CFE-CGC, CGT, Printemps Acologique, Solidaires Informatique, and STJV):"The announced transformation [at Ubisoft] claims to place games at the heart of its strategy, but without us, these games cannot exist," the unions wrote in a joint release.... We are not fooled: rather than taking financial responsibility for layoffs, they prefer to push us out by making our working conditions unbearable. It's outrageous...." The Ubisoft unions hope that February's strike will be the largest yet, and they're coordinating with unions outside France to present a globally united front against the company. A union representative at Ubisoft Paris even argued to Aftermath that because the CEO "needs to find 200 million for the coming year, any person who has to quit because of this is a net benefit for him."

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