The drive to unionize workers in the games industry reflects the dynamics of the modern labor movement as a whole. The number of union applications has increased in 2022 as more workers apply to the National Labor Relations Board to organize their jobs. And it’s not just making headlines; the data also support the rise. Between October 2021 and September this year, 2,510 union representation petitions were filed, according to the NLRB, a 53% increase over the last fiscal year. And at the moment it’s not just about digital shops. The drive to unionize is also spilling over into the tabletop industry.
Cards against humanity Workers at the eponymous studio were granted the right to form a union in 2020, and workers at Pathfinder publisher Paizo followed shortly thereafter. The tabletop and card game industry is expanding into retailers and warehouses at companies such as Card Kingdom, Mox Boarding House and Noble Knight Games.
“The gaming industry is a dangerous industry in that it’s passionate about it,” Devin Zebertavage, digital media specialist at Noble Knight Games, told Polygon. “We do it because we love it. And it’s the perfect storm for any employer looking to take advantage of their workforce.”
A second Noble Knight Games employee, who wished to speak anonymously, continued, “The tabletop industry is exciting and fun. I think employers rely on them when they offer us wages that don’t match the responsibilities that are being asked of us. We love our company. We love the industry. That’s why we are [here]. We just think our expertise and talent deserve better wages, better benefits and a better work environment.”
Workers at Noble Knight Games, a Wisconsin-based online retailer of board and table games, are the latest to petition the NLRB for a union vote. Along with better pay and a better work environment, workers told Polygon that sick days don’t matter at Noble Knight. “It would be nice to get some of these,” said Zebertavage. “Our PTO shaft is pretty tight.”
The group, dubbed Noble Knight Games United, submitted its petition on Oct. 31 after “years” of preparatory work and wanted to cover an estimated 70 employees supporting a physical and online retail store, offices and warehouse. Zebertavage said talks about a union had been going on for years, but the Communications Workers of America got involved in May. For its part, the CWA was a major driving force in the video game union stores and also pushed for tabletop and card games – the union of digital and tabletop games in a common industrial struggle.
Noble Knight’s leadership rejected the union’s request for voluntary recognition despite its 70 percent support among workers. In the days since that inquiry, Noble Knight has hired a “union avoidance” law firm called National Labor Relations Advocates. The hired attorney lists his services as helping companies “besieged by union threats and harassment to stand up and fight back”. On its blog, the company offers tips on how to “stay in control of a company” and describes unionizing as an “assault”. Another blog post considers whether unionizing or COVID-19 is the bigger threat to businesses, calling COVID-19 a “temporary pain” while unionizing is a “long-term pain”. Noble Knight Games staff see the move, by hiring National Labor Relations Advocates, as an anti-union attempt.
Polygon has reached out to Noble Knight for comment.
Elsewhere in the tabletop industry, Card Kingdom employees in a group of more than 100 employees covering a variety of storage and grading roles submitted their union petition to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 3000, in May; They won their union elections in July. Based in Washington State, Card Kingdom primarily focuses on Magic the Gathering Cards – a collector’s item that rose in value dramatically in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. In his petition Card Kingdom workers said Revenues have peaked in the past two years with no increase in wages or benefits, in addition to stressful working conditions, lack of safety regulations and Cases of repetitive strain injuries.
In June, retail and service workers at Card Kingdom’s retail store and restaurant, Mox Boarding House in Bellevue, Washington, filed a petition to cover nearly 40 employees — also at CWA. In this petition, workers claimed the company had “poor employee retention” due to low wages and unfair management practices. They are looking for representation to “protect both ourselves and those who come after us,” workers wrote. Like Card Kingdom workers, Bellevue Mox Organized Workers won their union vote this year.
Card Kingdom management told Polygon that it “welcomes” unions at both its Card Kingdom and Mox Boarding House, Bellevue locations. Card Kingdom is currently in negotiations while Mox Boarding House will enter negotiations soon after winning the August 30 vote.
The Mox Boarding House is unique because it fills a variety of roles – it’s a restaurant with a full kitchen, a board game cafe and a retail outlet. It’s a huge space with hundreds of board games to play and borrow, as well as the store and its Magic the Gathering sales business. Cade Herrig, a retail clerk at Mox, said staff got together and started talking about wages: “Most of us don’t make enough to pay the rent ourselves,” they said. “Most of us aren’t paid enough to make ends meet without having multiple roommates, side jobs, or other sources of income. It was a very basic math question – we need to make more of it to stay comfortable here.”
Herrig stressed that many employees want to stay there and to be able to stay there. People like working there.
“Gaming, tabletop, board games […] it’s an industry of passion,” said Herrig. “You’re seeing this on the video games side too, with the instability in career choices and the layoffs. Union organizing is an incredibly important step in protecting people and allowing them to work on their passions and things they care deeply about, while still being able to make ends meet and at the end of the… Putting food on the table every day.”
Tabletop and card workers unionize for the same reasons everyone else does – “better pay and conditions, benefits, and a collective voice at work that meets eye to eye with management,” said Anna Minard, communications director of UFCW 3000. versus igamesnews. The push toward a unionized gaming industry that includes table and card workers is an important way to ensure so-called passion industry workers are “gained a strong voice in the workplace so they can deserve the compensation and respect everyone deserves.” should get for their work,” she said.