Paizo Paizo Workers Unionize

The workers at Paizo, publisher of Pathfinder and Starfinder, have formed the United Paizo Workers union (UPW). The new union speaks of its love for the company, but cites a number of underlying issues including underpay, crunch conditions, and the recent allegations regarding the work environment made by former employee Jessica Price. They also bring up hiring practices, pay inequity, verbal abuse from management, and the covering up of harassment allegations.

The UPW is asking Paizo to recognize the union.

Redmond, WA (October 14th, 2021) — Today, the workers at Paizo, Inc - publisher of the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games - are announcing their formation of the United Paizo Workers union (UPW), with the Communication Workers of America’s CODE-CWA project. This union is the first of its kind in the tabletop roleplaying games industry.

“Unions have helped build a stronger working class in America and I’m proud to stand with United Paizo Workers. I believe that when we all work together, we’re better for it. Unionization allows workers to have a seat at the table and ensures that our voices and concerns are being heard and addressed so that all of Paizo can move forward for a positive future.” - Shay Snow, Editor

"I love my job. I love my coworkers, and I love the company I work for. I get to sell a game that I love to a community that I love. I come from a pro-union family, and I believe that unionizing Paizo will be the best way to protect the people, company, and community that I love, for now and going forward into the future." - Cosmo Eisele, Sales Manager

“My coworkers are amazing and so are the games we make together. I want Paizo to keep publishing Pathfinder and Starfinder content for years to come. This is my way of helping management improve our company culture, and by extension, the content we produce.” - Jenny Jarzabski, Starfinder Developer

“I proudly stand with my coworkers as we strive to help improve our workplace, and I believe the UPW will amplify our voices and assist with the changes we feel are necessary in making Paizo a more positive space for its employees.” - Logan Harper, Customer Service Representative

Paizo is one of the largest tabletop roleplaying publishers in the world, producing more than 10 hardcover books annually, along with numerous digital adventures and gaming accessories. Paizo also runs some of the most successful living campaigns in tabletop gaming history, with regular players in more than 36 countries. However, despite this success, Paizo’s workers are underpaid for their labor, required to live in one of the most expensive cities in the United States, and subjected to untenable crunch conditions on a regular basis.

Though efforts to organize by the Paizo workforce had already been underway for some time, the sudden departures of several long-standing employees in September and the subsequent allegations of managerial impropriety by former Paizo employees threw into stark relief the imbalance of the employer/employee relationship. These events, as well as internal conversations among Paizo workers, have uncovered a pattern of inconsistent hiring practices, pay inequity across the company, allegations of verbal abuse from executives and management, and allegations of harassment ignored or covered up by those at the top. These findings have further galvanized the need for clearer policies and stronger employee protections to ensure that Paizo staff can feel secure in their employment.

Changes have been promised, internally and externally, by the executive team. However, the only way to ensure that all workers’ voices are heard is collective action. It is in this spirit that the workers of Paizo have united to push for real changes at the company. The UPW is committed to advocating on behalf of all staffers, and invites all eligible Paizo employees to join in the push for better, more sustainable working conditions. The union requests the broad support of the tabletop community in urging Paizo management to voluntarily recognize the United Paizo Workers, and to negotiate in good faith with the union so that both may build a better workplace together.

For more information, please contact the Organizing Committee at committee@unitedpaizoworkers.org

Raychael Allor, Customer Service Representative

Brian Bauman, Software Architect

Logan Bonner, Pathfinder Lead Designer

Robert Brandenburg, Software Developer

James Case, Pathfinder Game Designer

John Compton, Starfinder Senior Developer

Katina Davis, Webstore Coordinator

David "Cosmo" Eisele, Sales Manager

Heather Fantasia, Customer Service Representative

Eleanor Ferron, Pathfinder Developer

Keith Greer, Customer Service Representative

Logan Harper, Customer Service Representative

Sasha "Mika" Hawkins, Sales and E-Commerce Assistant

Jenny Jarzabski, Starfinder Developer

Erik Keith, Software Test Engineer

Mike Kimmel, Organized Play Line Developer

Avi Kool, Senior Editor

Maryssa Lagervall, Web Content Manager

Luis Loza, Pathfinder Developer

Joe Pasini, Starfinder Lead Designer

Austin Phillips, Customer Service Representative

Lee Rucker, Project Coordinator

Sol St. John, Editor

Michael Sayre, Pathfinder Designer

Shay Snow, Editor

Alex Speidel, Organized Play Coordinator

Levi Steadman, Software Test Engineer

Gary Teter, Senior Software Developer

Josh Thornton, Systems Administrator II

Jake Tondro, Senior Developer

Andrew White, Front End Engineering Lead



In Solidarity:

Thurston Hillman, Digital Adventures Developer

 

[Dire Bare]

True, but they didn't mention any affiliation with larger labor unions (or did they and I missed it?).

And it's not like the Paizo Union couldn't become associate members of a broader RPG union in the future. Plenty of unions are actually local affiliates who are part of or allied with a larger national organization.

The Paizo Workers Union is already affiliated with the CWA (Communication Workers of America). They certainly could change affiliation down the road if that makes sense at some point. It's common for small unions in industries that aren't heavily unionized already to affiliate with a larger, broad-based union organization like the CWA. I used to work in the telecommunications industry as a customer sales rep, and our union was CWA-affiliated.

The CWA is a pretty big, national-level union organization. They are a big-tent that affiliates with a lot of smaller industry union groups.

 

[Dire Bare]

Not to be anal, but we already have a UPW: United Public Workers. My late dad was a member (he was a custodian at a high school).

What's your point exactly?

I'm not familiar with the UPW, but why should Paizo staff affiliate with the UPW over the CWA?

EDIT: Ohhhh . . . . you're commenting on the Paizo staff's choice of acronym. Seriously?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I’m not so sure. The Paizo Union understands exactly what it wants and what needs to change. They have a pretty specific set of demands. Why should Paizo employees make their needs and priorities subordinate to the separate circumstances of others? Forming this union is already a measured risk, runaway scope expansion is an easy way for the whole endeavor to fail. They should only consider it once accomplishing their main goals.

That would be a local union thing. You can have a larger union with local or company leadership. For example, in the US the auto workers union negotiates with each auto maker separately. I could see the same concept working of RPGs

 

[Staffan]

Flip side - if your company is not able to pay decent wages for reasonable levels of work, should you continue as a company? I mean, isn't that a reasonable definition of "failure" of a corporation?

As I said over on Paizo's boards: if your business can't pay a decent wage, it has no business being in business.

I think that in general, the RPG market would be well served by a move to fewer, higher-priced products. I mean, not everything needs to be Invisible Sun, but it does seem that Monte Cook Games is doing pretty well, business-wise, and pays their employees well (I'm pretty sure that I saw a Twitter post by Sean K Reynolds a few months ago mentioning that he's paid way more there than he was at Wizards or Paizo).

Unfortunately, Paizo seems unlikely to be leading a charge like that, given that the core of their business model is the monthly adventure path, and that they produce a whole lot of material in addition to that. Pathfinder 2 has been out for little over two years, and over that time they've released a total of three bestiaries, a Gamemaster's Guide telling you how to fiddle with their game, and three major rule expansions (Advanced Player's Guide, Secrets of Magic, and Guns & Gear) featuring a total of 8 additional classes. And that's in addition to the lore stuff they've done for Golarion (8 more books of varying sizes), and a bazillion different accessories. Paizo's always been about hitting that supplement treadmill, and hitting it hard. I don't think their current audience would like it if they, say, halved their publication speed and increased prices by 25-50%.

 

[Jaeger]

I don't see how this could really be a bad thing in the long run. At worst it fails and a bunch of people leave, who then get replaced, and the company goes back to normal in a few months.

No.

At worst they drag Paizo down with them when they fail.

Shortcut #1. Pathfinder kept a lot of sacred cows from 3.5. From Paladin's alignment, through alignment and Evil races, to wizard power shenaningans. There was strong opposition to that at that time, and yet, none of that was addressed. ...

By Pazio's own admission they never fixed the underlying issue with 3.5.

PF1 is literally an employees 3.5 house rules layered on top of the OGL, which was a made in a last minute decision when they found out that WotC would not have the 4e SRD ready in time for them to make a 4e adventure path available when 4e hit the shelves.

That is all info they readily admit to on a company blog.

I find it hard to fault them too much for the decisions they made under those circumstances.

Shortcut #2. Oppressive design of Pathfinder 2. The year is 2018. The game market tends to use lighter mechanics, flatter power progression curve and abilities that are distinctive. You have 5E, Soulbound, my all-time-favorite 13th Age, and OSR. And then you get a game with stuff like this: https://www.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx
... I would hate to believe that modern design trends passed over heads of relatively young developers at Paizo.

The developers at Paizo have many old WotC employee's! So they knew full well what they were doing.

My guess is that the development followed the path set by the creative people in charge, and that deviations and experiments were not encouraged.

They read their market signals and interpreted them in a way that they thought PF2's design direction was the way to go.

I think that they read them wrong, but that is a whole other thread!

As to them not listening overmuch on playtests... That does seem to be a legit complaint given their history with Starfinder and PF2, when they were not under the same time crunch that they had with PF1.

It’s telling that the Paizo Union folks emphasize allowing people to work remotely so they can live in cheaper areas, instead of demanding much higher wages. It’s because they recognize that much higher wages isn’t a realistic option given the economics of the industry. Whereas moving the company to more affordable location - or at least letting their workers live in much more affordable places - is a realistic option.

In my experience companies pay as low as they do in the overwhelming majority of cases simply because they can.

A big problem with even small companies like Paizo is this:

CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,322% since 1978: CEOs were paid 351 times as much as a typical worker in 2020

What this report finds: Corporate boards running America’s largest public firms are giving top executives outsize compensation packages that have grown much faster than the stock market and the pay of typical workers, college graduates, and even the top 0.1%. In 2020, a CEO at one of the top 350...

www.epi.org

The contemptable greed of modern Ceo's with their salaries going up around 1000% in relation to workers wages is breathtaking.

How much do Paizo executives take off of the top? That would be a very interesting number to see...

Of course companies will come back with the line that: "The economics of the industry prevent us from....".

To which I retort: "Show me the books then."

Which is virtually without exception followed by: ~insert sound of crickets chirping here~

I have seen the internal figures of enough companies to know when they are lying.

Also if they try to hire scrubs to go around the union the whole industry will know who they are and the quality of the product will probably significantly suffer.

That assumes two entirely separate things;

1: That they have the cash on hand to fire everyone, and hire replacements in a timely fashion.

2: That the people currently working on projects for them are more talented than the dozens of others that Paizo could possibly employ.

I seriously doubt they have the will, or a deep enough pocketbook to go scorched-earth with option number 1.

I absolutely believe they could replace their entire workforce over time without a dip in quality. They're not that good...

Pathfinder 2 has been out for little over two years, and over that time they've released a total of three bestiaries, a Gamemaster's Guide telling you how to fiddle with their game, and three major rule expansions ... featuring a total of 8 additional classes. And that's in addition to the lore stuff they've done for Golarion (8 more books of varying sizes), and a bazillion different accessories. Paizo's always been about hitting that supplement treadmill, and hitting it HARD. I don't think their current audience would like it if they, say, halved their publication speed and increased prices by 25-50%.

Hitting the supplement treadmill that hard when you are not doing 5e sales levels might actually be the root of their current problems.

Especially if the Pazio executives are paying themselves salaries equivalent to what their WotC counterparts make...

Of course this opens up another can of worms:

WotC is doing silly sales numbers with 5e.

Yet it is known that they do not pay their freelancers anymore than Paizo does...

 

[CapnZapp]

Collective bargaining has always been one of the best ways for workers to gain better wages and working conditions for themselves

Reading this from Europe, it strikes me as quaint that a company is even allowed to operate without unionized workers.

(That is, my reply is yes obviously)

It's so very 19th century to not take unionizing as a given right. The notion that a corporation would even think to oppose unionizing, much less being allowed to actively block it, is unheard of. Thankfully I live in a country where it is basically impossible to operate unless you actively make sure your new hires are unionized.

 

[ReshiIRE]

The union has come out in support of trans rights.

 

[MGibster]

t's so very 19th century to not take unionizing as a given right. The notion that a corporation would even think to oppose unionizing, much less being allowed to actively block it, is unheard of. Thankfully I live in a country where it is basically impossible to operate unless you actively make sure your new hires are unionized.

We do have federal laws that protect the rights of workers to unionize, the National Labor Relations Act is the big one, and places limits on what a corporation might do to prevent workers from unionizing. It is illegal for an employer to coerce or interfere with the creation of a union. For example, they can't threaten to fire workers, spy on them, or even offer them special benefits if they vote against the union. This isn't to say that employers never violate the law (Say it isn't so!), but the law does recognize the right of workers to form a union.

Part of the problem here in the United States, is that unions have been vilified for many decades now. In some circles they were unfairly blamed for driving up labor prices in auto manufacturers as well as producing crummy automobiles in the 70s and 80s. So a lot of people will vote against unionizing their workplace because they fear the union will put them out of work or they'll take dues without providing anything of value.

 

[MGibster]

1: That they have the cash on hand to fire everyone, and hire replacements in a timely fashion.

It's not really a cash problem. Even if they had oodles of cash, no business can afford to lose so much of their workforce at one time because it'll shut down their business and nothing will get done. You can't just hire a bunch of people and expect them to be productive as it takes time for them to get into the swing of things. When my company announced a vaccine mandate there was a lot of pushback from employees in some of our lines of business. One of my managers asked me, "What are we [his line of business] going to do when 25% of our workforce walks out the door?" He was worried because losing that many workers would cripple his line of business. Thankfully most employees who threatened to quit over the mandate have since gotten the vaccine.

 

[Justice and Rule]

It's not really a cash problem. Even if they had oodles of cash, no business can afford to lose so much of their workforce at one time because it'll shut down their business and nothing will get done. You can't just hire a bunch of people and expect them to be productive as it takes time for them to get into the swing of things. When my company announced a vaccine mandate there was a lot of pushback from employees in some of our lines of business. One of my managers asked me, "What are we [his line of business] going to do when 25% of our workforce walks out the door?" He was worried because losing that many workers would cripple his line of business. Thankfully most employees who threatened to quit over the mandate have since gotten the vaccine.

The topic about the freelancers coming out in support of the Union covers this. It's another bit of leverage they have right now.