The STJV is issuing a call for every worker in the video game industry, every student in video game related studies, and everyone able to do so, to go on strike on Thursday, December 5th, to protest against the pensions overhaul project and, on the contrary, to ask for improvements to the current pension system, better working conditions, less job insecurity, and overall more equality.
This overhaul project’s goal is to make us retire later in life and to reduce pensions. We cannot accept more precariousness regarding pensions, especially after health-destructing and underpaid careers in video games. We do not want to lose our lives making a living! By attacking the “special” pension schemes, which have been won through social struggles, the government is trying to divide us. Every industry, every craft that loses benefits is one more excuse to justify lowering the standards for everyone. We must unite and defend, together, our desire for a better life.
When it comes to workers’ rights the current government, just as its predecessors, is on its way to dismantle everything that’s been gained in the past. Video game workers, already threatened by the neoliberal practices rampant in our industry, cannot accept more cuts to their rights. Between the unemployment benefits reform, which is already reducing the standard of living for many of us stuck between contracts in a slow-recruiting industry, and the incoming Project Contract, the future of our industry cannot be conceived without social struggle.
We demand better working conditions and the respect of our rights: end of the crunch culture, higher salaries, equality between genders, fight against harassment and every form of discrimination, end of the generalization of precarious contracts, end of the exploitation of interns!
We believe the unity of workers, across different industries and demands, will allow us to build a collective base able to create, with everyone carrying this hope, a better future not only for our jobs but also for the whole population and for the planet. This strike will be an occasion to come together and unite everyone’s struggle.
For all these reasons, the STJV is issuing this call to strike and will march along other unions in several cities. We encourage everyone who is working, has worked in the past, or is looking to work in the future in the video game industry, whatever their status, to gather at the meeting points which we will organize. We would like to remind workers in the private sector that, since it is a nationwide call to strike, they don’t need to do anything in particular to participate in the strike: you only need to not show up to work on the 5th of December.