Not for the first time, workers at Fallout, Doom, and The Elder Scrolls parent ZeniMax threaten strike at Microsoft: "Paying your employees a livable wage as a multi-trillion dollar company is the least they could be doing"

ZeniMax Workers United, a union formed by around 300 QA workers at Bethesda's parent company in 2023, has voted to authorize leaders to call for a strike following nearly two years of contract negotiations.

A press release from the union says that "more than 94%" of members voted in favor of this authorization. The authorization does not necessarily mean that a strike will happen, but it gives union leaders the power to call such a strike if negotiations remain stalled. ZeniMax Workers United already called a single-day strike last year in protest of forced return-to-office mandates and Microsoft's decision to outsource QA work. Those concerns are still a key part of the union's concerns today, alongside "better wages" and "workplace improvements."

"Despite being one of the world’s largest corporations, we’ve had to continuously fight for what should be bare minimum," union member and associate QA tester Aubrey Litchfield said in the press release. "Paying your employees a livable wage as a multi-trillion dollar company is the least they could be doing; however when addressed at the bargaining table, Microsoft acts as though we’re asking for too much."

"Our quality assurance team is an integral part of our business and is key to our ability to deliver games our players will love," Microsoft said in a statement to 12DOVE when reached for comment. "We respect the team's right to express their viewpoints and are deeply committed to reaching a fair and equitable resolution that acknowledges the teams' contributions.

"There has been substantial progress over the course of the negotiations, reaching tentative agreements on a majority of the topics at the table. We have presented a package proposal that we believe is fair – if accepted it would result in immediate compensation increases, even more robust benefits and is in alignment to the company’s hybrid model of 3 days in office. We look forward to continuing this progress during negotiations."

Senior QA tester Zachary Armstrong said in the union's press release: "Underpayment and costly RTO initiatives have caused many of us to put our lives on pause because our income does not match even the rising cost of living in the cities where ZeniMax insists we live and work to maintain employment."

The exact details of the contract negotiations are not public knowledge, but Microsoft's promise of hybrid working arrangements demonstrably aren't sufficient for many union members. As Litchfield notes elsewhere in the release, "we’ve released multiple titles while working fully remote." We've seen developers at studios like Blizzard and Rockstar similarly push back against forced return-to-office policies.

"We’re not afraid to use our union power to ensure that we can keep making great games," senior QA tester Skylar Hinnant said. "All of us want to be working. We hope that Microsoft will allow us to do so with dignity and fairness to all by securing a first contract with our union."

Xbox spoke in quite friendly terms about unions during its Activision Blizzard buyout, but it'll take an actual contract to see how far that friendliness goes.