Just Cause Developer Avalanche Commits to Collective Bargaining Agreement With Swedish Unions

ign.com:

Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios Group has pledged to sign a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with its unionized workers…though the signing itself won’t happen for another year.

Avalanche Studios employees first began contract bargaining with management last fall, following a history of collective action at the studio, but many of them had been union members for much longer. Union membership in Sweden is a bit different than United States union membership. In Sweden, most workers are allowed to join a trade union that represents their line of work at any time. Union members receive some benefits automatically, such as unemployment insurance and career advice, regardless of whether or not others in their workplace have joined that union.

As a result, union membership in Sweden is high (around 70% of the country), and the unions are able to influence national laws governing minimum wage, sick leave, and other working conditions. But employees can also elect to form a union “club” within individual workplaces, and if enough members join, they can choose to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement directly with their company that offers further protections.

Avalanche Studios Group Union chairman Love Arvidsson tells me despite the popularity of unions in Sweden, the games industry in the country is running a bit behind on adopting them. But it’s starting to catch up. Last October, over 100 developers at Avalanche Studios announced that they had formed a union club at the company through Swedish union Unionen. Other employees similarly had joined a different union, Sveriges Ingenjörer (Engineers of Sweden). Together, the group asked to bargain with Avalanche management over a collective agreement that would grant them even more rights and protections in the workplace. Avalanche accepted, becoming a part of employer organization Almega, and negotiations between all involved groups have been ongoing since then.

Many of the benefits of such a contract, Arvidsson