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.

 

[ECMO3]

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.

Yes the union protected the bad employees by requiring the "rightful documentation". That is all I am saying.

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.

There were 4 people that went to prison over the Volkswagon Deiselgate. All were executives. Two of them knew about it, one of them specifically ordered it, the other two claimed to know nothing about it but were deemed to be at fault because they should have known. However the very people who actually DID IT walked away scott free.

Purposely disabling an emissions device is a FELONY for the person doing it and the people who actually did it were charged with nothing.

If I am your boss and I tell you to go kill someone I should probably be arrested and charged for conspiracy to murder, but if you pulled the trigger you darn sure should go to prison as well!

 

[Clint_L]

It is not so much that it is threatening as it is that it's dumb. "If you create a union, we'll have to negotiate with you collectively instead of individually"... yes? That's the whole point.

No, the point is to remind the workers that not all of them might like what they get. For example, apparently a huge sticking point is the right to work remotely. What are the workers who don’t work remotely, or who find working with people remotely a challenge, willing to concede for that?

I’m pro-union, but unions aren’t all sunshines and rainbows, particularly in a complex work environment, which this one is. It’s not a bunch of miners with very similar working conditions. This is a “be careful what you wish for” letter calibrated for its environment, but it’s also super tame. I read it as “we’d rather you didn’t, but this is not a hill to die on for us.”

But if you want to believe that WotC and their lawyers are just stupid, that’s fine too.

 

[ECMO3]

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

Well that is fine. I am totally fine with leaving non-union workers out of a CBA and not having them be eligible for union insurance or anything else. If the union can arrange so only their represented members get benefits, that is great.

But if things the union does do benefit others as an aside, that does not mean those others should have to pay for something they didn't ask the union to do on their behalf in the first place.

Also, I do feel it is necessary to mention that if you are leaving non-union employees out then you aren't really striving to improve conditions for all workers but rather only those that pay for it. That is fine and ok morally and ethically, but you really should admit that it is transactional instead of cloaking it in language about improving conditions for all workers.

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.

I am not anti-labor, I am anti-oppression.

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.

This is at best a stereotype and at worst prejudice. This may be true sometimes, but it certainly is not always true.

This is my problem with a lot of people in this type of discussions, they make claims that are not universally true. Unions are good for some workers, unions are not good for all workers.

"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."

I don't care what country workers board of supervisors said. I am not them. I never said that and I never meant that. It is up to individuals if they want to join a union and their reason for joining or not joining for paying dues or not paying dues is their own. It is not yours and it is not mine.

 

[ECMO3]

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.

You are right the government should not be allowed to take money out of someone's pay check without a court order. We agree on something at least.

 

[saviirkad]

Yes the union protected the bad employees by requiring the "rightful documentation". That is all I am saying.

The union did not protect them. It protected me, my superiors, and my place of work, by providing a framework with which disciplinary action could be pursued without risk or liability.

There were 4 people that went to prison over the Volkswagon Deiselgate. All were executives. Two of them knew about it, one of them specifically ordered it, the other two claimed to know nothing about it but were deemed to be at fault because they should have known. However the very people who actually DID IT walked away scott free.

Purposely disabling an emissions device is a FELONY for the person doing it and the people who actually did it were charged with nothing.

If I am your boss and I tell you to go kill someone I should probably be arrested and charged for conspiracy to murder, but if you pulled the trigger you darn sure should go to prison as well!

Whether they should or should not have been charged is not really relevant to the topic of unions, but to the justice system that offered to them plea deals. Whether it was right to do so or not, it's a part of the system that at times those who are deemed less involved with a crime can escape some of its consequences if they assist in holding responsible those who were more involved.

 

[MGibster]

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

It's relevant because you're shifting the responsibility from a bad manager to the union. The example given is a bad employee for whom there is no documentation for the bad behavior. That is a failure on the part of management. The union is doing their job by ensuring the employee is treated according to the standards agreed upon by management when it comes to adverse actions by the employer. Management can't cry about being unable to fire a bad employee because they're the ones who aren't doing their job.

I work in a non-union shop, but we have our own policies regarding disciplinary actions that includes a progressive disciplinary policy. On more than one occasion, I've had discussions with managers who wanted to fire an employee for substandard work but they had no documention. They never talked to the employee about it, put them on a performance improvement plan, or started any discilinary actions. i.e. The manager didn't do their job.

Unions protect employees, both good employees and bad empl

Yup. Just like our laws protect both the innocent and people who committed crimes.

 

[ECMO3]

Independent contractors in the United States cannot be part of a union.

This is BS. Federal labor laws do not explicitly protect them nor give them the explicit right to organize or engage in collective bargaining but independent contractors can, and in the northeast U.S. often do join unions, particularly trade unions and those unions offer advocacy, group benefits and sometimes legal advice.

Here is a webpage on it from a very pro-union website.

Can freelancers unionize?

Nearly one in six workers is an independent contractor. Learn how you can organize for better conditions.

workerorganizing.org

 

[ECMO3]

The union did not protect them. It protected me, my superiors, and my place of work, by providing a framework with which disciplinary action could be pursued without risk or liability.

Yes and it protects those bad people too. Just because it protected you, doesn't mean it did not protect bad employees as well. This is what I have been saying all along.

Whether they should or should not have been charged is not really relevant to the topic of unions, but to the justice system that offered to them plea deals.

Except that they were not charged (or even fired) because the union backed them.

 

[ECMO3]

It's relevant because you're shifting the responsibility from a bad manager to the union.

I am not saying anything about responsibility. I am not saying the manager does not have responsibility. I am saying the union protects bad employees and it does.

The example given is a bad employee for whom there is no documentation for the bad behavior. That is a failure on the part of management.

Ok, sure, and the union is protecting said employee who's manager failed to document.

Yup. Just like our laws protect both the innocent and people who committed crimes.

EXACTLY! The unions protect bad employees in a very similar fashion to how our constitutional rights protect criminals and shield them from prosecution.

That is fundamentally different than claiming that they don't protect them.

 

[MGibster]

This is BS. Federal labor laws do not protect them nor give them the explicit right to organizae or engage in collective bargaining but independant contractos they can, and in the northeast U.S. do join trade unions regularly and those unions offer advocacy, group benefits and sometimes legal advice.

Your very own cite says they don't get the protections for union activity that employees get under the NLRA. Independent contractors are not going to be folded into the WotC union.