Upset mood at Ubisoft. After four years of teleworking, employees are on strike against returning to the office.
The beleaguered French games company Ubisoft simply cannot calm down. After several failed releases and the recent postponement of the hopeful Assassin’s Creed Shadows to the beginning of 2025, the company’s own workforce is now mutinying.
Around 700 employees in France have been asked to stop working over the next three days. The French union of employees in the video games industry (Video Game Workers Union) wants to put pressure on the top management with the strike, to withdraw an unpopular change to the home office regulation.
The labor dispute among Ubisoft employees has been going on for a while. The STJV had already gone on strike at Ubisoft in February because of poor pay. But at that time and also in interim negotiations about employee profit sharing, the company’s management had shown itself to be unyielding.
In September, the publisher announced that it wanted to bring more of its employees back to the office after four years of extensive freedom in hybrid working models. Key aspect of the new regulation: In the future, employees should be in the office at least three days a week.
Management expects the three-day rule to be beneficial an improvement in creativity and teamwork
which still leaves room for the individual circumstances of the employees.
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Interference with the rights of employees
However, the union sees it completely differently. She considers the change to the home office regulation to be a disproportionate interference with the rights of employees. Many of the employees have built a life for themselves over the past few years (family, apartment, children) and can’t just return to the office with nothing, nothing.
The fact that Ubisoft now wants to tell its employees how to organize their lives is in favor of the union the straw that broke the camel’s back.
What does the union want?
In their strike call the STJV union has one List of three demands set up that she wants to enforce from the Ubisoft management with her industrial action:
- An official remote work agreement.
- An immediate increase in all salaries to compensate for the decline in living standards in recent years, as well as profit sharing.
- Actually listening to workers’ opinions by introducing a
social dialogue.
It is still entirely unclear whether the top management will respond to the demands
On top of that, Ubisoft is currently conducting an internal investigation into how the inefficient work processes within the company can be improved and games can be developed closer to the interests of the target group – but also the shareholders. It would not be surprising if this investigation resulted in some layoffs.
If you’re surprised that there are so many strikes in France: The strike culture is much more pronounced among our neighbors than in Europey; The right to strike even has constitutional status there. While strikes are rare in this country and only unions are allowed to call for them, in France even state employees such as civil servants can go on strike.
You can find more insights into the current events surrounding Ubisoft in the link box above. The publisher’s next major release will be the action role-playing game Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which will be released on February 14, 2025.
