The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has filed an unfair labor practice charge against eBay-owned TCGplayer on behalf of workers at the trading card marketplace. The organization says TCGplayer supervisors and managers, including founder and CEO Chedy Hampson, illegally surveilled union activity in recent weeks.

Workers at TCGplayer are trying to unionze and this week, a supermajority filed for a union representation election. If they're successful, they'll form TCG Union/CWA, which will be the first union within eBay.

The CWA claims that TCGplayer higher-ups have walked the floors of the company's authentication center in Syracuse, New York. It says the supervisors and managers were taking note of employees who wore clothing or badges that identified them as supporters of the union drive. "This conduct constitutes unlawful surveillance of union activity and further created an impression of surveillance designed to interfere with, restrain and coerce employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the National Relations Labor Act," the CWA said in a statement.

The workers renewed their attempts to form a union after eBay bought TCGplayer late last year in a deal worth up to $295 million. They previously tried to organize in 2020, but withdrew their union election petition a few days before the vote. The CWA says that TCGplayer thwarted those efforts by bringing in a union-busting firm and running "an intense anti-union campaign where workers were regularly ordered to attend captive audience meetings and disparaged by management in company communications."

Engadget has contacted TCGplayer and eBay for comment.

More than 280 workers at TCGplayer, a marketplace for trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon, are trying to unionize. A supermajority of the workers have filed for a union representation election with the National Labor Relations Board. If their efforts are successful, they'll form the first union at eBay, which bought TCGplayer in 2022 in a deal worth up to $295 million.

Employees of several card and tabletop companies have unionized, including Card Kingdom, Bellevue Mox Boarding House, Noble Knight Games and Paizo. The TCGplayer workers are similarly trying to organize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which has also worked with severalvideo game studios in their unionization attempts.

“We are ready to unlock the full potential we know TCGplayer can have. By forming a union, we are able to support each other, customers, and sellers to create the best TCGplayer for all of us," Jennifer Bonham, a shipping generalist at TCGplayer, said in a statement. "We are incredibly passionate about our work, but passion can only get us so far. We want to see our collective health and well-being thrive because for many of us, this is the best job we have ever had."

The workers are organizing as TCG Union/CWA and are all employed at the company's authentication center in Syracuse, New York. They each play a hand in ensuring card shipments meet quality standards and that they're accurately completed.

The workers are seeking an end to pay caps; pay rises to account for inflation and cost of living increases; and "a fair and comprehensive sick leave and absence policy that does not punish people" for issues outside of their control. Moreover, they're demanding inclusive career advancement opportunities; fair and transparent hiring practices; clearly defined job roles and expectations; and the resources and training needed to do their jobs. On top of that, they're asking for a seat at the table, along with "just cause and clear grievance and discipline procedures, applied equally to management."

This isn't the first time that the workers have attempted to unionize, as Polygon notes. They tried to do so almost three years ago with the Service Employees International Union. However, just days before the scheduled vote, they withdrew the petition. The eBay acquisition is said to have reignited the unionization drive.

"We have received notice that a petition is being filed by the Communications Workers of America labor union asking the National Labor Relations Board to conduct a vote on union representation," a TCGplayer spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "We have not seen that petition by the National Labor Relations Board, nor have we had the chance to review it. We respect an employee’s right to choose or to decline union representation, and acknowledge this is a big decision. Our commitment to our employees during this time is to ensure they have the information needed to make an informed and confidential choice."

Engadget has contacted eBay for comment.

YouTube Music contractors in the Austin area who voted to unionize are accusing their employers of abusing return-to-office policies to stifle labor organizers. The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that YouTube parent Alphabet and staffing firm Cognizant are using an abrupt return-to-office move, due in February, to punish remote workers, many of whom are reportedly pro-union. Some also live outside Austin. Managers have also been sending work to other offices to "chill" union organization efforts in Austin, according to the complaint, while a supervisor purportedly made implicit anti-union threats.

While the workers are contracted, they claim Alphabet and Cognizant represent a "joint employer." If so, Alphabet would be responsible for working conditions and have to negotiate if the Austin-area team votes in favor of a union.

We've asked Alphabet and Cognizant for comment. In a statement to Bloomberg, a Cognizant spokesperson claims staff were "fully aware" of an eventual return to the office before the petition to unionize, and that it has "repeatedly and consistently" told employees about its return-to-office policy since December 2021. Those contractors who willingly left the Austin area and can't come back to in-person work can also be "considered" for other work at Cognizant, the spokeperson says.

This isn't the first increase in tension between Alphabet and pro-union contractors. In spring 2022, Washington state Cognizant employees working on Google Maps warned they would go on strike over an allegedly unreasonable return-to-office schedule. Cognizant pushed back the return by 90 days. At Google, meanwhile, many cafeteria workers quietly unionized during the pandemic as they sought better conditions.

The row comes as Alphabet is cutting 12,000 jobs worldwide in the wake of rough economic conditions and dropping profits. While that figure only covers direct employees, it reflects pressure to slash employment costs. That, in turn, may set up conflicts with pro-union workers seeking better pay and benefits.

Amazon union workers in the UK are striking for the first time over wages and what they call "severe" working conditions. They've rejected what they say is a "derisory" £0.50 pay raise (62 cents) and are demanding an increase to £15 ($18.48) an hour. 

A 98 percent majority of GMB union workers at Amazon's Coventry fulfillment center voted in favor of the "historic" walkout and announced a strike date of January 25th earlier this year. Of 1,000 workers at the plant, 300 are unionized and expected to participate in the action. 

Amazon said in a statement that the size of the strike is "only a fraction of 1 percent of our UK employees," according to CNBC. It added that pay has increased 29 percent since 2018 and that it made a one-time £500 payment to help workers with inflation. 

However, two employees interviewed by the BBC said Amazon's offer last August of a small pay raise to between £10.50 and £11.45 per hour was a "smack in the mouth" considering the company's profits and high inflation. "These people had worked two years through the pandemic, that had seen Amazon's shares go through the roof, they had seen the profits just become unimaginable," Darren Westwood told the BBC. 

They also decried the company's work culture, saying Amazon's warehouse robots "are treated better than us." Westwood said that employees are monitored constantly and questioned for any idle time lasting a few minutes. He also noted that some employees work 60 hours a week to make ends meet.

In April of 2022, workers at Amazon's Staten Island warehouse voted to become the first in the US to join a union, and Amazon's appeal failed last week. The company recently announced that it would eliminate 18,000 jobs, the majority from its retail and recruiting divisions. It has been frequently been accused of poor working conditions, notably after a warehouse collapsed in a tornado, and also faced criticism over anti-union activities. 

One Activision Blizzard studio won't form a union, at least not in the near future. The Communication Workers of America (CWA) says it's withdrawing its petition for a union vote at Blizzard support studio Proletariat, which is currently working on World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. As Kotakunotes, a CWA spokesperson claims Proletariat chief Seth Sivak saw employees' unionization move as a "personal attack" and held meetings that allegedly "demoralized and disempowered" the team enough to prevent a fair election.

The pro-union group, the Proletariat Workers Alliance, said in December that it had majority support. Activision Blizzard declined to willingly recognize the union, though, forcing an election through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It's not clear how much support the vote has now, but Proletariat engineer Dustin Yost says in a statement that the union-busting meetings "took their toll."

We've asked Activision Blizzard and the CWA for comment. There are no immediate indications the CWA plans to resubmit the petition or file a complaint with the NLRB over the alleged anti-union tactics. Yost says he still feels a union is the "best way" to get industry representation.

Staff at Activision Blizzard's Albany studio and Raven Software successfully unionized last year despite accusations of anti-union tactics from the publisher. However, those campaigns were limited to quality assurance testers. Proletariat Workers Alliance hoped to unite the entire studio except for management, which was considerably more complex. According to an Axiossource, some teammates felt the unionization push was too quick and didn't give them the time to understand the consequences.

This doesn't rule out a union at Proletariat or other Activision Blizzard teams. With that said, it comes as workers across the tech space seek to unionize, including at gaming giants like Microsoft's ZeniMax. Developers and testers don't feel they're getting fair working conditions, and they're increasingly willing to speak out on the subject.

Apple has agreed to review its labor practices in the US after regulators and employees accused the company of union busting. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its annual shareholders meeting, Apple said it would carry out an assessment of its "efforts to comply with its Human Rights Policy as it relates to workers’ freedom of association and collective bargaining rights in the United States by the end of calendar year 2023."

The company will bring in a third-party firm to conduct the audit, according to The New York Times. A group of investors, including five New York City public worker pension funds, that controls around $7 billion worth of Apple stock called for the assessment in a September shareholder proposal. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who started talks with Apple on behalf of the city pension funds, told the Times that Apple agreed to the audit if the investors withdrew the proposal.

“Workers organizing at Apple for a collective voice in their workplace have reported strong pushback from the company — that flies in the face of Apple’s stated human rights commitment to workers’ freedom of association,” Lander said in a statement. “I’m grateful to Apple’s board of directors for listening to the concerns of shareholders regarding worker rights and hope the company will heed the findings of the third-party assessment and take concrete steps to adopt a genuine commitment to non-interference that respects the rights of its workers."

In a letter to Apple chairman Arthur Levinson, the investor group urged Apple to hire a firm with expertise in labor (and that has not advised clients on how to prevent workforces from unionizing) to carry out the review. The investors also brought Microsoft's neutral stance on labor organizing to Levinson's attention and urged Apple to include its global supply chain and non-US operations as part of the audit.

"Apple has made commitments to worker rights globally as well as in its supply chain, and while much of the current organizing activity has occurred in the US, there are Apple worker organizing efforts occurring around the world, including in Australia and the UK," they wrote. "Addressing these topics at a global level can add credibility to the assessment and address other potential areas of concern proactively and efficiently."

News of the assessment comes amid talks between Apple and unionized workers at a store in Towson, Maryland over their first union contract. Workers in at least a half-dozen stores have accused Apple of violating labor laws, claiming that the company has clamped down on attempts to organize. The Communications Workers of America, which represents a collective of Apple Store workers in Oklahoma City, said in a National Labor Relations Board filing that the company set up an illegal union controlled by management at a store in Columbus, Ohio to thwart support for an independent employee union.

"While a credible, independent assessment by individuals or organizations with the appropriate expertise on workers' freedom of association could uncover important information about Apple's response to worker organizing, including its use of union busting consultants, workers need concrete solutions now. Apple must commit to a true policy of neutrality toward union organizing efforts," the Communications Workers of America told Engadget in a statement. "Apple's workers deserve respect and a voice on the job, not just another self-congratulatory exercise in corporate image management. We support investor advocates’ efforts to ensure this is a credible audit."

It's Ubisoft's turn to face strikes from unhappy game developers. Solidaires Informatique Jeu Vidéo has called for Ubisoft Paris employees to strike on January 27th to demand better working conditions. The labor union wants an "immediate" 10 percent salary increase to account for inflation and improved hours that include a four-day work week. Solidaires Informatique also wants greater transparency on workforce changes, as well as pledges to avoid thinly-disguised firings and "abusive" management practices that push staff to quit.

The strike plan comes in response to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's internal email following news the company was cancelling three games and otherwise grappling with tough economic conditions. As PC Gamernotes, Guillemot called for workers to be "especially careful" with spending and warned of moves that included "targeted restructuring" and "natural attrition." To Solidaires Informatique, the executive is attempting to "shift the blame" to staff while not-so-subtly hinting at layoffs, pay cuts and quiet studio closures.

Ubisoft Paris declined to comment to Engadget. This isn't the first time Solidaires Informatique has taken Ubisoft to task over its behavior. The labor group sued Ubisoft in 2021 for allegedly fostering a culture of "institutional sexual harassment" where it was easier to tolerate horrible behavior than fix it. The company had already fired key managers accused of misconduct, but others remained in place.

The call to action joins a growing labor movement across the gaming world. Microsoft just recognized the game industry's largest union, while more Activision Blizzard workers are winning union votes. That's on top of a gradual turn away from the long hours of crunch time that have often defined game development. Eidos' Quebec studios started four-day weeks in 2021, and talent has sometimes left to form independent studios where crunch is forbidden. Simply put, employees are no longer willing to accept the status quo.

On Tuesday, workers at Proletariat, the Boston-based studio Blizzard bought earlier this year to support World of Warcraft development, announced they recently filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Proletariat is the third Activision Blizzard studio to announce a union drive in 2022, but where past campaigns at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany involved the quality assurance workers at those studios, the effort at Proletariat includes all non-management workers. The 57 workers who want to form the Proletariat Workers Alliance include animators, game designers and software engineers. The group seeks representation from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union that helped QA staff at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany organize.

“Everyone in the video game industry knows Activision Blizzard’s reputation for creating a hostile work environment, so earlier this year, when we heard that Blizzard was planning to acquire Proletariat, we started to discuss how we could protect the great culture we have created here,” said Dustin Yost, a software engineer at Proletariat. “By forming a union and negotiating a contract, we can make sure that we are able to continue doing our best work and create innovative experiences at the frontier of game development.”

The Proletariat Workers Alliance asked Activision Blizzard to recognize their union voluntarily. According to the group, the company has yet to respond to the request. Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.

The workers at Proletariat say they aim to preserve the studio’s “progressive, human-first” benefits, including its flexible paid time off policy and robust healthcare options. Additionally, they want to protect the studio from crunch, the practice of forcing compulsory overtime during the development of a game. They’re asking management to commit to a no-mandatory overtime policy and implement better pay and health protections for workers who agree to voluntary overtime. The Proletariat Workers Alliance says their colleagues also shouldn’t be penalized during performance reviews for not taking on extra work.

In June, Microsoft announced it would respect all unionization efforts at Activision Blizzard following the close of its $68.7 billion deal to buy the publisher. Earlier this month, the FTC sued the tech giant to block the merger.

Blessedly 2022, a year that by most people's estimation will be remembered as lousy, will soon be in the rear view mirror of history. Hallelujah, life goes on.

There are any number of reasons to give a failing grade to The Year That Was: Inflation and the still-looming threat of another global recession, critical legislative losses on abortion and trans rights, yet another new covid variant, having to pay attention to Elon Musk — take your pick. But, in the realm of labor, there's at least one reason to feel hopeful. 2022 was the year unions won elections to represent workers at two of the world's biggest tech companies, with a third likely on the way.

Workers at an Apple Store in Towson, Maryland made history in June, becoming the first 110 unionized members of the tech giant's approximately 160,000 person workforce. They chose to be represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, but the Baltimore-area staffers are far from alone. Retail workers at a store in Oklahoma City became the second unionized faction within Apple in October — backed by the Communications Workers of America — while another in Glasgow, Scotland — joining GMB — became the third in November.

Many other Apple Store locations have been agitating for better conditions as well, a non-exhaustive list of which includes two stores in New York City, one in St. Louis, and one in Atlanta. Some of these have stalled or been frustrated by the usual union-busting tactics, like an alleged policy created by management in New York's World Trade Center location to curtail organizing. The company's anti-union tactics in Atlanta have since been deemed illegal by the National Labor Relations Board. And of course, Apple reportedly hasn't given up on undermining already unionized locations. Workers at that same Towson store claim the company is withholding new benefits seemingly in retaliation.

Amazon workers in Staten Island have likewise become the first to organize one of the company's warehouses — and not with an established union, either. Amazon Labor Union (ALU), a grassroots effort which officially established itself last April, secured a win against tremendous odds, less than a year after forming. Those odds, incidentally, included retaliatory firings of leaders, using police to intimidate and arrest organizers and an (unsuccessful) attempt to overturn the unionization vote. Amazon has previously illegally interfered with a union election and reportedly retains the services of operatives from the infamous Pinkerton agency to spy on workers and labor groups. The company's new CEO, Andy Jassy, recently violated labor laws in several interviews by openly stating his employees would be “better off without a union.” This is all to say ALU had a tremendous uphill climb and, incredibly, managed to pull it off.

As with Apple though, what we're talking about is a first step. The company has not bargained a contract yet with workers from ALU, and will likely forestall and undermine that process as much as possible, whether by legal or illegal means.

ALU's organizing efforts have branched out but have so far not found the same success. A warehouse in upstate New York voted overwhelmingly against unionization. However, management had put up digital banners at the same location ahead of its organizing drive instructing workers specifically not to sign union cards, again in apparent contravention of labor law. ALU withdrew a union petition to organize a warehouse in California in October, but has remained open to refiling. Apart from ALU, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters claimed last December that organizing Amazon facilities would be a top priority — seemingly it has focused those efforts on an Amazon Air hub in San Bernardino, where workers have walked out in August and October. The surrounding area — California's inland empire — is believed to be home to the highest density of Amazon facilities in the company's logistics network.

Microsoft, too, received an early Christmas present in the form of quality assurance testers at its subsidiary ZeniMax Media announcing their intention to unionize with the Communications Workers of America. While that election has not yet taken place, Microsoft's president Brad Smith penned a lengthy screed earlier this year supposedly espousing the company's openness to union representation within its ranks. To many (this author especially) Brad's words were hot air intended to assuage regulators who are weighing whether to allow the company to merge with games giant Activision-Blizzard. Incidentally if that deal goes through, Microsoft will be home to three bargaining units: this past year QA testers at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany successfully joined the CWA in May and December, respectively, becoming the first workers not only at Activision but at any major games publisher to do so.

Necessarily a huge number of other labor actions in the tech space have been left out of this recollection, but for the most part they fit the pattern above: lower-paid workers at wildly profitable companies whose wages have not even remotely kept up with inflation. Adding insult to injury, tech companies, broadly, did extremely well during the pandemic while these same frontline workers risked their health and safety. Then this year, once economic forecasts became gloomier, many were swept up in downsizing decisions. It's perfectly logical Amazon warehouse workers, games testers at Microsoft and Activision, support staff at Meta, cafeteria workers with Alphabet and Waymo, janitors at Twitter and retail associates at Apple, Google Fiber and Verizon would be unhappy with their work arrangements. It's the same reason rail workers, nurses and Starbucks baristas have been agitating, and the same reason approval for unions is the highest it's been since 1965. Things aren't working. The hand they've been dealt is unwinnable. And though an imperfect tool, unions are one of the few ways workers can attempt to renegotiate the terms.

Unfortunately, labor law in the US leaves much to be desired. Companies have incredible power to delay bargaining, wearing down their own workforces by attrition while cooking up excuses to fire, lay off or manage out organizing leaders. Even after the hurdle of winning a union election, according to Bloomberg Law, the mean negotiation time to secure a contract is over 13 months — and many take significantly longer. The penalties for breaking labor law are so minimal, especially for companies of Big Tech's size, as to be non-existent. Whether this groundswell of organizing continues to grow in the coming year remains in every way an open question, depending at least in part on economic realities. With layoffs continuing to ravage not just frontline workers but higher-wage tech jobs, there's reasons enough to suspect it might.

Apple violated federal law by holding mandatory "captive audience" meetings and making coercive statements with anti-union messaging, the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) Atlanta regional director has concluded. The workers at Apple's Cumberland Mall store filed for a union election with the NLRB earlier this year in a bid to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA). In May, however, they withdrew their petition, and the CWA submitted an Unfair Labor Practice complaint on their behalf. 

The CWA said in its complaint at the time that Apple had "conducted mandatory 'captive audience' meetings with bargaining unit employees regarding the upcoming election." In a newer statement sent to Bloomberg, the organization said that holding meetings like that is "not only union-busting, but an example of psychological warfare." As the news organization notes, the NLRB had previously allowed companies to require employees to attend mandatory meetings prior to union elections. But Jennifer Abruzzo, the labor board's current general counsel, sees them as coercive and in violation of the law. 

The NLRB said that it will issue a complaint if the tech giant doesn't settle. While the labor board's regional director has sided with the workers and with CWA, it's still up in the air whether Apple will be required to change its policies or suffer any sort of punishment. Complaints issued by regional directors will have to go through the board's judges, and companies could approach the NLRB's board members in Washington to appeal rulings they hand down. The case could go to federal court after that. 

Apple is facing another complaint by the NLRB, which found enough merit in a report also filed by the CWA on behalf of the company's World Trade Center workers in NYC. For that particular case, Apple was accused of surveilling staff, limiting their access to pro-union fliers and forcing them to listen to anti-union speeches. If Apple doesn't settle, a judge will hear the case on December 13th.