Workers at gaming company Ubisoft Halifax file to unionize

The logo of French video game publisher Ubisoft is pictured at the Paris games week in Paris, Nov. 4, 2017.

Dozens of video game workers with Ubisoft Halifax have filed to unionize, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Canada.

A majority of the nearly 60 staff workers at Ubisoft Halifax, which has an office on Barrington Street, filed with the Nova Scotia Labour Board on Wednesday, according to a news release from CWA.

“Unionizing with my coworkers at Ubisoft Halifax is important to me so that we have the strength needed to protect what we have today and to fight for our tomorrow,” said senior server programmer Thomas Gillis in the release. “With no end in sight to the industry-wide turbulence that sees studios shutter on releasing games fans love, it is up to us, the workers, to organize and demand a say in our labour, art and future.”

Jon Huffman, a lead programmer at Ubisoft Halifax, the push to unionize started last year when fellow studio Alpha Dog Games shut down.

“It sent ripples through our industry,” Huffman said. “It’s a tight-knit community. That was almost a call to action. What is it that we could do maybe to have things work out differently?”

Huffman said there will be a secret ballot vote on unionization next week.

Following certification, the union will include producers, designers, programmers, artists, researchers and development testers.

Huffman said their union would be the first of its kind for Ubisoft in North America. There are several Ubisoft unions in Europe.

“We don’t want to be coming at this from a place of negativity,” Huffman said. “We love working at Ubisoft Halifax. We want to do it for a long time.”

According to its website, the gaming studio was founded in 2010 and became Ubisoft Halifax in 2015. Some of its games include Rainbow Six Mobile and Assassin’s Creed Rebellion.

Ubisoft was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in France with studios around the world.

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