Employees at Ubisoft’s French offices are being urged to strike over the company’s recently announced global return to office mandate.
STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo) made calls for a strike over a three-day period in October. According to the union, the decision to mandate a return to office policy without “any tangible justification or any consultation with the workers’ representatives.”
“After more than five years of working efficiently in the current remote-work context, many of our colleagues have built or rebuilt their lives (family life, housing, parenthood, etc.) and simply cannot return to the previous working conditions,” the union’s statement reads. “Our employer knows this perfectly well. The consequence of its decision will be the loss of our colleagues’ jobs, the disorganization of many game projects, and the drastic increase in psychosocial risks for those who remain.”
As far as what they are looking for, STJV says its demands are clear. They want a “formal agreement on remote work” as well as an increase in all salaries to “compensate for the drop in our living standards in recent years”. Lastly, they say they want to company to implement true “social dialogue” instead of a system where “management seems indeed to confuse monologue with dialogue”.
STJV is asking for all France-based employees to strike from October 15-17.
The calls for a strike come while Ubisoft is facing its most tumultuous time in recent history. The company announced on Wednesday that it was delaying Assassin’s Creed Shadows until February while also revealing an investigation and review of the company was set to take place. On top of that, its stock prices have fallen to 11-year lows due to changes in financial targets for the year.
Insider Gaming has reached out to Ubisoft for comment. Should a response be received, it will be added to this story.
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