Sega of America is Unionizing

ign.com:

A supermajority of workers at Sega of America have announced today that they have formed a union under the Communications Workers of America, and are asking for voluntary recognition from company management.

The group, which is based out of Irvine, California, consists of 144 workers in departments such as brand marketing, games as a service, localization, marketing services, QA, product development, ops, and more. Referring to themselves as "AEGIS-CWA," they have filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board, which will take place unless Sega of America management chooses to voluntarily recognize the union first.

AEGIS has stated the following goals in its mission statement:

“Working for SEGA is a passion for many of us and it’s been so exciting to see that through organizing, we can make this work a sustainable long-term career," said Mohammad Saman, Sega QA lead and AEGIS member. "By creating our union, AEGIS-CWA, we’ll have a say in the decisions that shape our working conditions and ensure the job security and working conditions we deserve. We’re excited to protect what already makes SEGA great, and help build an even stronger company, together."

Sega of America employees join a number of other game studios filing for union recognition with CWA in recent years, including Raven Software QA employees and Blizzard Albany at Activision Blizzard and Zenimax Media at Microsoft. While union discussions across the industry have been going on for much longer, the recent surge comes in part as a result of a shift in more positive attitudes toward unions as well as growing awareness of industry working conditions.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine .