Two weeks ago, 160 employees at Don’t Nod signed and sent an open letter to the studio’s management team. Since then, its very clear conclusions have been deliberately ignored.
Don’t Nod’s CEO, Oskar Guilbert, explicitely refused to talk about it even though the topic was brought up several times during the monthly studio meeting where he instead read a pre-written text, all while saying that “times are tough for everyone here, and me in particular” and rejecting yet again the very notion of taking part in the redundancy plan negotiation meetings.
Call for a strike on Friday, November 22nd
After three weeks of social conflict, Don’t Nod’s management refuses any sort of dialogue with us, its employees. Instead, they tell us to “open our chakras” and to be “future-oriented”. But what future is there if we lose 69 of our colleagues in an industry in crisis?
Julie Chalmette, Deputy General Manager, took the stand to say that “‘firing people’, personally, is a term I hate.” Guess what? So do we!
What we want
- We want management to answer and justify its choices to the whole studio on every point that was made in the open letter.
- We want management to immediately give up this unjust and irresponsible layoffs plan.
- We want employees, who are the most competent in this, to have a say in all studio decisions from now on.
- We want Oskar Guilbert to sit at the negotiations table, and face his responsibilities as CEO.
- We said it from the get go, and management showcases its inability to even begin to challenge itself: this layoffs plan is absurd, violent and will not save the company.
We are calling on our colleagues to keep mobilizing through a strike on Friday, November 22nd.
Strike fund
As workers, we do not have the same luxury as our bosses of having others pay our debts. This is why we are calling on the generosity of those who wish to support our struggle and allow us to keep fighting by contributing to our strike funds if you so wish.
To that effect, we have setup an online pot.
If you can contribue, you will allow more of our colleagues to fight to defend our job and remind studio management that when it comes to their idiotic choices, the buck stops at them, not the employees.
In order to be completely transparent, here is how we want to use the funds that will be raised:
- For those in precarious situations who will ask for support, they will be compensated the amount of their net salary per strike day (up to a maximum of 100 € per strike day)
- For others, we will equitably share the amounts raised proportionally to declared strike days (with yet again a maximum of 100 € per strike day)
- Strike days are declaratory, we will not force anyone to claim the maximum amount they could
- If the raised amount falls short, STJV will step in to ensure that decent amounts are paid off to all
- If funds remain at the end of the movement, they will be included in STJV’s national strike fund that will remain at the disposal of future social movements
We thank you a thousand times in advance for any donation, and be sure that they’ll be worth a lot more than just their monetary amount. They will allow workers to defend their jobs and, we hope, to better the situation in the video games industry, even as it trends ever more towards dehumanization. Those donations are a militant act.