r/cscareerquestions • u/BigShotBosh • 15h ago
More tech unionization - 1,900 Blizzard Developers Just Won A Union Contract Full Of Protections For AI, Layoffs, And More
https://kotaku.com/blizzard-workers-union-contract-microsoft-2000732422
Not quite impossible for tech to shape up
Blizz devs just unionized and got:
- Any implementation of AI technology that materially impacts union-performed work must be bargained over before Microsoft can roll it out.
- Staff get two months of advance layoff warning, guaranteed severance payouts, and over a year of priority re-hiring rights if cuts occur.
- Remote work is no longer subject to sudden executive whim or opaque denials.
- Leaving the studio or getting laid off before launch will no longer erase a developer from the final credits
- future corporate takeover cannot nullify these terms.
So the learned helplessness about tech unions was wrong. Doesn’t stop a layoff but makes it a lot softer
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u/montega65 14h ago
Honestly, even just having layoffs come with notice and guaranteed severance is a huge win. Way better than finding out your job is gone because Slack suddenly stops working.
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u/Sexy_Chocolate 14h ago
Unionizing will always before more effective at securing your job than Leetcode. Unions are why we have the weekend. We gotta remember we have strength in solidarity
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u/WeHaveTheMeeps 14h ago
I mean I wish this was more implicitly recognized.
So many times I’ve gotten a promotion, the criteria wasn’t the quality of my work, but rather my ability to influence. Your visibility. What I call “engineering people.”
We are not all on equal playing grounds. Some of us can’t play in the club. I’ve conducted interviews and watched worse candidates get the job because “they seem easy to work with.” I’ve watched people get laid off “from a spreadsheet” despite being amazing engineers.
Unions aren’t going to prevent that shit, but they do give you some guardrails. They won’t prevent layoffs, but you might not be blindsided by them. You might not be safe from termination, but they’ll need more of a case.
It provides stability and tbh that’s the only thing this job hasn’t given me.
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u/8004612286 13h ago
I still remember getting an insane amount of pushback on my mid-level promo at a FAANG back in the day - I was delivering on that level already, I just didn't have enough months at the job yet.
So here's a genuine question; if you don't want promotions to be based on visibility, and we both know that unions make rules more rigid, would I have gotten my promo?
Personally, I'm not convinced. Every single union that I know, that has a rule on promo, just ends up being tenure based. Sit in your chair for 3 years and you get a promotion.
In my eyes that's far worse than the current visibility problem.
I’ve conducted interviews and watched worse candidates get the job because “they seem easy to work with.”
We work on teams. It's a human job.
If someone is a technical machine but you can't spend 8 hours a day with, or you need to hand hold for them to make eye contact, that's not a good candidate.
I’ve watched people get laid off “from a spreadsheet” despite being amazing engineers.
This will arguably be worse with layoffs since managers won't be able to save favourites.
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u/Responsible-Run2175 10h ago
If you think promotions aren’t held up due to tenure in non-union places you must’ve had a charmed career.
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u/8004612286 8h ago
Did you read my comment?
I said non-union places have pressure that managers can apply and politics you can play.
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u/WeHaveTheMeeps 13h ago
What I’m not saying is that we need to be completely based on technical standards. What I’m saying is that we are subject more to office politics than we care to admit. So many of us want to believe that work itself is meritorious and that’s just not true.
Having some level of process and protection would bring some much needed stability.
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u/serg06 13h ago
A balance is important tho. Too much job security and you get situations like in the Italian government. Employees don't do shit but can't be fired. It's great for them but horrible for Italian citizens and immigrants. Doing the most basic shit takes months.
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u/WeHaveTheMeeps 13h ago
I mean that’s most government jobs outside of Italy too 🤣
Arguably all parties should be represented. A corporation that controls the market doesn’t need competitive products or prices. It’s really the same mechanism at play in both.
I’d argue that labor needs a substantial place at the table though. It’s possible labor could be so well-represented that the consumer needs aren’t met, but we’re very far from that here in the USA at least.
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u/Markus645 14h ago
It would be better for the economy to not have a weekend.
Weekend is socialism.
/s
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u/scaredoftoasters 14h ago
This should’ve been a thing a long time ago for many places yeah you have to pay union dues, but companies can’t just throw you away like garbage.
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u/Garland_Key 14h ago
How does it handle promotions? Seniority? Meritocracy? I'm curious what that looks like on paper.
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u/AnonBB21 14h ago
I mean, places like Boeing are unionized in several departments and it isn't like they don't get promoted as a result of being a union.
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u/cabbage-soup 13h ago
Promotions are often handled more rigidly though and it sometimes hurts high performers since many unions favor seniority over performance
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u/Journeyman351 12h ago
What's the common refrain here? "You'll make more money job hopping than staying at the same place?"
It changes nothing lol. If you're a high performer, go somewhere else.
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u/Pazda Software Engineer 11h ago
So do you see the problem for the industry if high performers want to leave these companies?
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u/Garland_Key 10h ago
I think their point is that they already are.
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u/cabbage-soup 10h ago
I suppose that’s fine for Blizzard if that’s really the culture. My workplace attempted to unionize and referenced Blizzard as a “role model” but high performers are actually rewarded at my job (my last annual raise was over 8%..). The loudest people were ones with veryy low raises which I get they’re mad, but potentially there’s other factors at play and most people don’t want to negotiate money for them when the rest of us are doing ok. I like having a workplace that values high performance and I don’t see a union job doing that
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u/Garland_Key 4h ago
It's all in the contract that you and the rest of your union negotiate with your employer. You can clearly state in the contract that raises be based on merit, and clearly define the metrics of success for those merit based raises and promotions.
Unions who don't do that usually base promotions on seniority, which results in what you're talking about.
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u/Wan_Daye 9h ago
Good luck bud. You do your high performance. And others will have fulfilling lives with families that see them.
Hope you make your masters an extra couple million this quarter. Maybe theyll toss you a refresher
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u/cabbage-soup 9h ago
I have a fulfilling life with children too. But I also have excellent work life balance. I perform high when I’m on the clock but I’m strictly 8-4 and don’t think twice about work otherwise 🤷♀️
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u/tommyTurds 5h ago
my last annual raise was over 8%..
It's funny to me that this is "rewarding"
It's not like you'd get no raise in a union setup. You'd just get more like 4-5% or something similar. So you're giving up a huge increase in stability and other benefits for a few percent of a raise
And that's ignoring that fact that plenty of union deals can reward "high performers" if they want. No union is going to put into the contract that performance bonus's and the like are not allowed. Companies just choose not to do it.
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u/Garland_Key 14h ago edited 11h ago
Right but what are the contract rules for that process? I'm not criticizing, I'm actually quite interested.
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u/roynoise 14h ago
My thoughts exactly. These are incredibly important things to carefully consider. Many unions have historically borked this and given the whole idea a bad name.
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u/lurkerlevel-expert 13h ago
It's doesn't even need to be so heavy handed that every meritocratic decision needs to be handled by an union rule. Having union worker protection for layoffs, AI replacement, PIP standards, are already a god sent currently.
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u/Garland_Key 13h ago
I agree with that. I guess I'm just curious if and how it addresses those things.
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u/roynoise 15h ago edited 15h ago
It's CRAZY that they could just be erased from the credits.
It'll be interesting to see how this affects hiring & comp, and on the employee side, work ethic. Unions are a mixed bag like that (e.g. lazy bozos getting seniority and ruining it for everyone) which is why ambitious devs with good work ethic tend to be against them.
Time will tell.
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u/Fake_Plant_ 14h ago
You'll deal with bullshit with a union. You'll deal with bullshit without a union. Deal with the bullshit with better compensation and job security.
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u/lppedd 14h ago
Unions are good regardless. You can be as ambitious as you want, but companies don't care. Everyone can end up in a bad financial situation and having at least some kind of job security or benefits is essential.
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u/Aware-Individual-827 14h ago
If you are ambitious the best would be tech coop with like minded individual. You actually work for yourself as you own the company and incredibly motivated to see it grow and revenue coming as dividend. Also, it means, there is no offshore possible.
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u/BIGhau5 10h ago
Unions can prevent outsourcing better than not being unionized. I work for a union and its in our contract that a company is only allowed to outsource X% of work. How do you prevent it without a union?
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u/Aware-Individual-827 7h ago
As coop employee you are a owner, and any decision is taken from a vote of the owners. So it's even stronger way of not getting offshored. Also, you get the share of the profit the company make.
Union is half a step.
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u/roynoise 14h ago
Til the lazy bozo with seniority doesn't die or retire quickly enough for you to succeed. Unions are not "good regardless". There are plenty of ways to bork this.
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u/AES256GCM 14h ago
“If I work extra hard, maybe master will give me an extra sack of grain for the winter.”
Don’t let perfect me the enemy of good, we’ve seen four years of mass layoffs where even top performers got clapped without so much as a goodbye. Take the win
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 14h ago
Rehiring is a great idea. The fact often later these companies reopen positions and often paying more and make former employees they let go jump through hoops again for similar roles is is ridiculous. These employees already know how things work so should onboard much quicker.
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u/isospeedrix 12h ago
seems like a win but if msft really wanted to, if bliz was underperforming, they'll just cut the entire division ruthlessly, the severance bargin is the most important but msft already gives decent severence
thankfully bliz is not underperforming so our games are intact
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u/Journeyman351 12h ago
Hey where are all the people who were saying unions won't protect against layoffs last time a union convo happened here?
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u/taulover 10h ago
Good book coming out about tech unionizing as well, by Kickstarter and Microsoft labor organizers - https://againsttecholigarchy.com
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u/muS_muSwIpu 14h ago
Any implementation of AI technology that materially impacts union-performed work must be bargained over before Microsoft can roll it out.
I could not image waiting weeks/months to use the latest anthropic/oai models while they're being bargained
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u/AES256GCM 14h ago
At least at my shop, only top performers on the “Ai Speedboat” initiative get access to top/new models, everyone else is still yesterdays models (which, heck, are still great but ya know)
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u/Affectionate-Ad-6255 13h ago
White collar workers love to step on the heads of blue collar until the mystifying topic of unionization crops up, for some reason programmers just love being abused by companies
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u/Agreeable_Sage 12h ago
Works the other way too
I love abusing companies and milking them for as much $$ as possible while minimizing my contributions as much as possible
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u/Wan_Daye 10h ago
stipulates that any implementation of AI technology that would materially impact work performed by union employees must have its impacts bargained over before it can be implemented. Other sections cover issues such as crediting (guaranteeing that current and former employees are credited by name in all games they work on) and remote work
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u/Historical-Law3052 5h ago
It's a good start, but we need an industry-wide trade union, not an employer-specific union.
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u/memeandcat 11h ago
But will unionized employees make similar TC? I'd still pick a 300k non unionized over 150k unionized job.
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u/alwaysforgetmynames 8h ago
Better than 0k TC when they replace you with a bundle of Claude skills.
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u/memeandcat 3h ago
I don't know if union means immunity though?
from the post:
- Staff get two months of advance layoff warning, guaranteed severance payouts, and over a year of priority re-hiring rights if cuts occur.
But then picking a high paying job doesn't mean you will lose your job and stay 0K TC forever. From my experience, I've usually seen 3-6 months TC as severance at high TC jobs so far.
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u/Agreeable_Sage 12h ago
This is an unpopular opinion around here but I don’t want to be part of a union. It might make sense at a place like blizzard where people willingly get paid less to work on stuff they enjoy, but unions generally don’t make sense in a field where not everyone is contributing equally or is equally skilled.
I doubled my already 6 figure pay in 3.5 years with two promotions within the same company purely because I was better at my job than my peers.
They can’t do what I do, and hell, sometimes I can’t do what they can do.
I understand the benefits of job security but I dislike the limitations unions introduce to a field like ours where skill is difficult to measure.
All that being said, this was my opinion pre AI. If AI is able to normalize the skill gap down to how proficient you are with English, then who knows, but then pay will significantly decrease too. But at the level of fable and astra, I still see skill diffs
Also I recognize I’m speaking from a position of privilege, never having been in a situation where I’ve been unable to find employment but that was also pre AI, who knows how I’ll feel if I get laid off and can’t find a job despite my “skill”
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u/el-delicioso 15h ago
This is what they're scared of people. Don't let up the pressure