Why BioWare contractors in Canada are trying to unionize

polygon.com:

Quality assurance workers employed by contractor Keywords Studios, whose clients include BioWare, were motivated to organize a union because of a return-to-office order that would mean hundreds of dollars in commuting expenses for employees mostly making minimum wage, one of the organizers told Polygon.

Last week, the Alberta, Canada Labour Relations Board informed Keywords Studios that its Edmonton QA employees were organizing under the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union, Local No. 401, to be their collective bargaining agent. Tuesday, May 3 is the deadline for their employer to file any objections to the union’s formation. Assuming there are none, a vote should be scheduled within two weeks, and if 51% of the Keywords testers vote yes, they will begin bargaining a contract.

Keywords would be the second video games developer in North America to have workers organized into a collective bargaining unit. Twenty-one Raven Software QA workers, located in Wisconsin, began voting on Friday on whether to form a union called Game Workers Alliance. Those votes will be counted May. 23.

Keywords Studios, founded in 1998, is headquartered in Ireland and maintains more than 20 offices worldwide. Keywords Studios in Edmonton is managed by the company’s British Columbia office. Keywords provides technical services in art, audio, games development, localization, and quality assurance, but does not develop or publish games itself. BioWare, owned by Electronic Arts since 2007, is among several AAA studios and publishers in the company’s clientele.

One of Keywords’ organizers, who asked not to be identified as “our management doesn’t know who’s involved with the effort at this point,” said that their vote could involve between