Wizards of the Coast declines to voluntarily recognize Magic Arena union by May 1st deadline

Wizards of the Coast has not voluntarily recognized a new union being formed by Magic: The Gathering Arena employees. A post on United Wizards of the Coast's webpage states that the company has not voluntarily recognized the union by the May 1st deadline put forth by the union when it announced its attempt to form. Per the post, Wizards has had no contact with union representatives at all, with their only statement about the planned filing being released to media sources instead.

Developers tied to Magic Arena announced last week that they were forming a union, citing a need to protect workers from layoffs, guardrails over generative AI usage and crunch time, and protections for remote work. This union is limited to Magic Arena developers only and does not encompass other areas at Wizards of the Coast.

As Wizards has not chosen to voluntarily recognize the union, the next step would be an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in which all qualifying employees can choose to vote on whether or not to form a union. Per the United Wizards of the Coast's page, the group's voluntary recognition letter contained a super-majority of the Arena team, meaning they would have the votes to create the union as long as their membership holds firm. The union organizers state that they expect the election to be held within the coming weeks.

 

[Dire Bare]

IMO it should be illegal to force someone to pay union dues. It is great that all the workers are benefitting, but that should not be an excuse to take someone's money out of their pay check against their will. They should not be forced to pay for something they don't want to pay for, whether it benefits them or not.

It should be up to the individual worker if the value proposition the union affords is worth spending the money. In this respect the union needs to "sell" the reason for workers to pay dues and if workers don't want to do that it tells you all you need to know about the value of joining the union from their perspective.

Ugh. Freeloaders.

In politics, the guy I voted against sometimes wins the election. Is that fair? Can I opt out of paying my taxes? Should I leave the country?

With unions, if you benefit from the union contract but you don't belong to the union and pay your dues, you are a freeloader. Ugh.

You have that legal right in some states and certain industries, but I can't respect that choice.

 

[ECMO3]

Unions strive to make sure their workers are treated fairly, that they are given due process when accused of doing something wrong. So, a supervisor can't just say "you plagiarized" and fire somebody . . . they have to document it, make sure they are giving the worker a chance to defend themselves, offer training and a chance to improve.

I agree that is what unions strive for, but all of that documentation as a point of fact makes it more difficult, FAR more difficult to discipline workers for unethical or illegal behavior. It can even make it impossible if you do not have that documentation.

But if the worker clearly stepped over the line, or has established a pattern of doing so, the union isn't going to protect them.

And without the union it would not need to be clear and would not need to be a pattern. Unethical union workers are protected by the union as long as they can conceal their behavior to the degree it can't be documented.

It's fairness, it's due process.

Fairness and due process offer protection to criminals and unethical people all the time. Why do you think this would be different for union workers?

Does it create more work for supervisors who feel they need to discipline or terminate a worker? Yes. Cry me a river. You sound like management.

Right, it protects the unethical workers.

I am not crying about it, I am just saying you are wrong when you claim unions provide no protections against unethical behavior.

I'll take a potentially corrupt union over a definitely corrupt corporation every day.

Neither corporations nor unions are sentient thinking beings. It is people running them that can be corrupt and there is a long and documented history of corrupt union leaders and corrupt company leaders.

 

[ECMO3]

With unions, if you benefit from the union contract but you don't belong to the union and pay your dues, you are a freeloader.

I should be allowed to freeload. It is my money, not the union's money. They should not be able to take money out of someone's pay check and this is the same argument that was used by mining towns (i.e. corporations) 100+ years ago to take money out of peoples pay for housing and things you got from the company store at 5 times what they should have cost.

We talk about what is best for the workers. If I am going to get all the benefits without paying, it is better for me as a worker to have more money in my paycheck.

 

[MGibster]

It's a letter explicitly trying to flatter the workers who have benefitted from the current status quo. Which is goofy, of course, since most of the workers will know they haven't gotten any special preferential treatment, although the cultural norm of not discussing salaries hinders that a bit.

These days I just assume employees in their twenties and into their thirties talk to one another about their salaries. For most younger folks, the subject of salary simply isn't as taboo as it once was. That said, for top performers raking in the cash, the union might not be good for them from a financial perspective as unions tend to prioritize seniority and salary progression leaving less room for merit increases. But in my experience, most employees aren't in a great position to negotiate on their own behalf unless their position is very specialized and they're difficult to replace.

Freelancers certainly can be covered by a Union and I am sure it is the intent of CWA to unionize them as well.

Independent contractors in the United States cannot be part of a union. Under federal law, they are not classified as employees and do not have the right to collective bargaining. Under federal law not every employee even has the right to unionize. I work in HR and being part of a union would represent a conflict of interest.

IMO it should be illegal to force someone to pay union dues. It is great that all the workers are benefitting, but that should not be an excuse to take someone's money out of their pay check against their will. They should not be forced to pay for something they don't want to pay for, whether it benefits them or not.

We currently have 26 right-to-work states where it's illegal to require membership in or to pay dues to a union as a condition of employment. Washington isn't one of those states.

Unions strive to make sure their workers are treated fairly, that they are given due process when accused of doing something wrong. So, a supervisor can't just say "you plagiarized" and fire somebody . . . they have to document it, make sure they are giving the worker a chance to defend themselves, offer training and a chance to improve. But if the worker clearly stepped over the line, or has established a pattern of doing so, the union isn't going to protect them.

My old HR director worked for a union shop and she loved it. "Everybody knows what they're supposed to do," she said. She was referring to everyone understanding and following various policies.

 

[Dire Bare]

I agree that is what unions strive for, but all of that documentation as a point of fact makes it more difficult, FAR more difficult to discipline workers for unethical or illegal behavior. It can even make it impossible if you do not have that documentation.



And without the union it would not need to be clear and would not need to be a pattern. Unethical union workers are protected by the union as long as they can conceal their behavior to the degree it can't be documented.



Fairness and due process offer protection to criminals and unethical people all the time. Why do you think this would be different for union workers?


Right, it protects the unethical workers.

I am not crying about it, I am just saying you are wrong when you claim unions provide no protections against unethical behavior.



Neither corporations nor unions are sentient thinking beings. It is people running them that can be corrupt and there is a long and documented history of corrupt union leaders and corrupt company leaders.

You have a strange take on things, IMO.

I misunderstood you at first . . . I think . . . still not fully sure . . .

So, someone who is accused of a crime and is on trial (and happens to actually be guilty) . . . is a criminal being protected by our due process laws.

I guess that's a way to look at it.

 

[Dire Bare]

I should be allowed to freeload. It is my money, not the union's money. They should not be able to take money out of someone's pay check and this is the same argument that was used by mining towns (i.e. corporations) 100+ years ago to take money out of peoples pay for housing and things you got from the company store at 5 times what they should have cost.

We talk about what is best for the workers. If I am going to get all the benefits without paying, it is better for me as a worker to have more money in my paycheck.

I should be able to opt out of paying my taxes to the government. It's my money, not the government's money. The government should not be allowed to take money out of someone's paycheck.

 

[saviirkad]

Sure it will. CBAs routinely put in place specific processes and hurdles companies have to go through to discipline and especially fire workers. This protects workers from exploitation and arbitrary disciplinary actions but it also makes disciplining those workers for legitimate ethical or even illegal reasons more difficult. In fact unions not only put processes in place, some of them will go as far as to provide legal representation to union members accused of criminal acts. Without the union these bad actors could just be fired.

Look at what happened at Volkswagon 10 years ago with the engines on Diesel vehicles that were programmed to fake emissions compliance. These cars spewed out 100 times the allowable pollutants. The company was fined Billions of dollars (not enough, but they were fined), top executives went to prison for fraud, even though some they claimed to not know about it. You know who got off scott free? The engineers who purposefully programmed the vehicles to cheat on the emissions test. Do you know why they got off? They were represented by a Union.

And that is just the union workers, before you consider the corruption that is regularly documented by Union leaders.

This has just not been my experience, working in an industry with a very strong, very involved union.

I've been involved with multiple disciplinary actions over the years, a few directly as a supervisor over the staff being disciplined, up to and including letting someone go. Where the union's involvement affected things was in the very rightful requirement of documentation of misdeeds and of prior attempts to correct the actions or behavior that they failed to deliver on when the misdeeds were not grounds for immediate firing.

There has been only one instance of a situation I had heard of where the union allegedly got in the way of a "legitimate" disciplinary action, when someone sought to fire a staffer due to a year's worth of significant errors and mistakes that did cause real damage. The union protected the staffer from being disciplined for that staffer's own errors and mistakes because ultimately it was the leadership team responsible for requiring that person to perform in an entirely different role and function that they were not hired for nor did they have the necessary technical skills to perform. And the documentation showed that leadership was made aware of that lack of training, of the likely consequences of putting an untrained staffer over that task, and it was the leadership team who gave inadequate time to get that training against recommendations.

What I have seen get in the way of legitimate disciplinary actions is nepotism and cronyism within or including leadership teams. And I have seen union-enforced practices actively dismantle their ability to intervene in such a way, albeit imperfectly.

And just to add, regarding your Volkswagon example of a union protecting engineers who committed illegal acts, my understanding is that one, it was management who was ultimately responsible for both ordering the fraud take place and for hiding its existence, and two, the engineers were prosecuted but the charges were dropped because of plea deals.

 

[MGibster]

And without the union it would not need to be clear and would not need to be a pattern. Unethical union workers are protected by the union as long as they can conceal their behavior to the degree it can't be documented.

If there's an employee with a history of bad behavior that can't be documented that's a failure on management's part. I'm going to turn my ire to the manager and ask them why they're failing at holding a bad employee accountable.

 

[ECMO3]

If there's an employee with a history of bad behavior that can't be documented that's a failure on management's part.

Ok and how is that relevant? It is still an employee with bad behavior that is protected by the union.

Unions protect employees, both good employees and bad employees.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

IMO it should be illegal to force someone to pay union dues. It is great that all the workers are benefitting, but that should not be an excuse to take someone's money out of their pay check against their will. They should not be forced to pay for something they don't want to pay for, whether it benefits them or not.

They should not benefit then. Ungrateful parasitism should never be rewarded.

It should be up to the individual worker if the value proposition the union affords is worth spending the money. In this respect the union needs to "sell" the reason for workers to pay dues and if workers don't want to do that it tells you all you need to know about the value of joining the union from their perspective.

Yes we all get that you are extremely anti-labor and believe strange things like "the best workers tend to be the best paid" as you said a while back.

The same people who don' understand the value of a union complain the loudest when the union cannot effectively bargain for what those workers want...because most of the workplace is parasitic, so the managers just laugh off the union.

"If the workers weren't satisfied with thier pay, theyd join your little union so you could represent them. Obviously most county workers like things how they are." Is a direct quote from the county workers union negotiation with the board of supervisors from about a decade ago when the union only had about 30% membership. To this day people use the failed negotiations as an excuse for their refusal to pay their fair share of the expenses of the organization that protects them, and just refuse to recognize that if they didnt opt out the union would get exactly what we ask for, and all the things they cry about all the time wiuld be fixed. It is disgusting.