Forza Motorsport, Halo Infinite QA workers vote to unionize

polygon.com:

Experis Game Solution workers who do quality assurance testing on games like Forza Motorsport and Halo Infinite voted Thursday to unionize.

Thirty-five people voted yes to unionize with International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), and four people voted no. The new union includes 42 test associates, software test engineers, and data software analysts in Experis’ Milwaukee office.

Experis workers will soon begin negotiations with Experis leadership. Experis Game Solutions falls under global staffing agency ManpowerGroup; it has other game testing offices in Portland, Oregon; Bellevue, Washington; and Tempe, Arizona. Microsoft is one of Experis’ more high profile clients, and the Milwaukee office’s testers are focused almost entirely on Microsoft games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, Starfield, Halo Infinite, and Forza Motorsport.

Related

Workers are looking to secure “fair pay, benefits and working conditions that respect the workers’ expertise and hard work” with their first union contract. “Improvements in working conditions are essential to reducing employee burnout and to creating sustainable, family supporting jobs in the Milwaukee area community,” according to the IAM news release.

Experis QA workers reportedly came up against an “active anti-union campaign” from ManpowerGroup and Experis. Leadership allegedly threatened to freeze pay and promotions, according to IAM. An Experis representative provided the following statement to Polygon, but did not comment on the union busting allegations:

We respect the right of our consultants to make their own decisions regarding union representation, regardless of whether they vote for or against. No vote could ever change the respect we have for our