Layoffs at Don’t Nod: call for a walkout on October 28

10/24/202410/24/2024

Dont Nod Entertainment’s top management, led by Oskar Guilbert and Julie Chalmette, initiated a redundancy plan on October 16. Presented as necessary to save the company, the aim is in fact to cut 69 jobs in order to make their employees pay for their own crass ineptitude.

In so doing, management has launched the negotiation of a method agreement, which will determine the terms of negotiation for the content of the plan itself.

Management hinders negotiations before they’ve even begun

The agreement proposed by management, which will be negotiated shortly, must be described for what it is: a rag.

Time limits have been reduced to the bare legal minimum, so as not to allow the STJV, the CSE and the mandated experts to do their work properly. The timetable is so slapdash that the experts are expected to deliver their opinion even before the agreement with the STJV has been concluded, i.e. an opinion that is incomplete and constrained by time – the deadline set by management falling on the day after the Christmas holidays, which is unrealistic and irresponsible.
The elected members of the CSE and the union delegation negotiating the PSE only have a very small number of hours of delegation, which are restricted as far as possible.
Management refuses in advance to let the CSE call for additional meetings, granting itself the unilateral choice of if and when to hold them.
No union communication channels are provided, and management confines us to the existing ones, i.e. an on site notice board and an intranet page buried by the tool’s referencing. It is impossible to inform almost 300 employees, 80% of whom work from home, with these derisory means.

What’s more, management is asking us to sign their amateur work starting this Monday, in order to expedite the PSE and hamper the work of the STJV and the CSE elected representatives. Their goal is to carry out their plan as brutally and quickly as possible, by trampling on all checks and balances, to fit in with their games release schedules.

Management must listen to employee representatives

It goes without saying that the STJV will use every means at its disposal to oppose this massive social slaughter, the likes of which has never been seen before in our industry. Behind these 69 jobs is yet another inept reorganization (the 4th in two years), which threatens all Don’t Nod workers in the long run.

We therefore demand that management rethink its position as soon as possible, in particular by including the following provisions in the method agreement:

That the additional delegation hours be left to the good use of the CSE’s elected representatives, in accordance with the practice described in its internal regulations and which has been respected since it came into effect.
For all meetings dealing with the PSE (R1, R2, R3 and R4; extraordinary CSSCT meetings; and any additional meetings):
- that elected representatives and substitutes be excused from their productive work for the two days preceding each meeting, without this being deducted from their delegation hours, so that they can confer with the designated expert and prepare the PSE meetings collegially;
- that elected representatives have the right to convene an additional meeting, following a vote by the CSE;
- that the experts, mandated by the CSE and the union, can take part in each of these meetings to fully assist the staff representation bodies;
- that the deadline for submitting expert reports be extended to coincide with the vote on the majority agreement and the delivery of the CSE’s opinion.
For the union delegation, a total of 12 hours of delegation per meeting, distributed and used in the same way as provided for in the method agreement on the NAO 2024.
That negotiation meetings be spaced out by a minimum of 48 hours, to allow the union delegation to pursue its obligation of democratic consultation of the section.
That, as for the NAOs, the union section be given a discussion channel dedicated to the redundancy plan, to keep employees informed of the progress of negotiations.

All these demands are more than legitimate, and are merely intended to maintain a semblance of social dialogue. We urge management to return to serious terms, respectful of democracy and social dialogue, and to immediately stop twisting the arm of elected representatives already exhausted by years of contempt.

As a result, we are calling on Don’t Nod workers to mobilize on Monday October 28 with a walkout from 4 to 6 p.m., which will be an opportunity for Oskar Guilbert and company management to reflect on their personal responsibilities in the present situation, during the general “bi-monthly exchange space” meeting which we will not be attending.

At Don’t Nod, the only plans for the future are layoffs

10/16/202410/20/2024

Today, on October 16, Don’t Nod presented its plan to reduce its headcount, which could go as far as eliminating 69 permanent contract jobs (29% of the Paris studio workforce). This announcement is the climax of a series of catastrophic decisions, denounced for a long time by workers’ representatives.

A layoff plan thrown at us with a sweep of the hand

On September 30, in front of the whole Paris studio, CEO Oskar Guilbert mentioned a future announcement about the company, which had to be presented to workers’ representatives before the rest of the company. Just one week after a financial communication by the company relating huge financial losses, this announcement stoked the fears about the economic situation of the studio, and therefore about jobs.

Today’s meeting, after 2 weeks of waiting in anguish, was revealed as the starting point of a layoff plan (« plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi » or jobs saving plan as it is officially called). Workers’ representatives were not told in advance about the meeting’s topic, and were not provided with any documents and information before the it, which goes against the law.

We fear the amateurism already displayed in following the process will jeopardize its implementation, and worsen the distress of our colleagues.

A concerted and organised denial

Workers’ representatives at Don’t Nod have been raising alarms for more than a year about the company’s economic situation, which is the reason cited to justify the layoffs. Last summer, the head of HR Matthieu Hoffmann was still claiming in front of representatives’ that layoffs were unimaginable. Yet 3 months later this is what we end up with. Mr Hoffmann conveniently left the company in the meantime.

Alarm bells have been ringing for months : the termination of the Jusant production line and the dispersion of its team on other projects, the « undefinite pause » imposed on unannounced projects, the increasing amount of workers, including executives, leaving the company, the commercial failure of the last games…

All of these had been questioned in workers’ representatives’ notices about the company’s situation, which had been left unanswered for many months. What’s left to say about a company living on public subsidies, yet not even complying with the most basic processes dictated by law ?

Management is hiding being « the state of the economy » and « a very competitive market » as excuses for its failures, without ever questioning its inconsistent decisions, which have been harmful to the studio and its workers.

Concerns raised in our last statement have been ignored

In our statement on February 7, we were denouncing the permanent reorganisation at the company, which left whole teams behind. Eight months later, this reorganisation has been forsakend and is revealed as useless, exactly as we predicted.

We were also denouncing the absence of social dialogue, the increasing consequences on workers’ health, the obstacles to workers’ representatives exercing their mandate, or the chaotic productions. Nothing has changed, except for the addition of planned layoffs.

The Don’t Nod union section, as well the whole of the STJV, cannot tolerate the company rejecting the responsibilities of its own failures on its workers. We warned them long ago, but they ignored us and accused us of being too agressive to speak with. With this layoffs plan, they are creating an atmosphere of extreme violece. We are calling on all workers at Don’t Nod to mobilise to save their jobs and working conditions.

Faced with executives who have decided to mock their workers, a social movement like the one currently happening at Ubisoft is necessary. It is up to us to establish the necessary balance of power to save our jobs. We will not pay for our bosses’ mistakes.

Call for strike for all French Ubisoft entities on October 15, 16 and 17, 2024

09/26/202410/20/2024

Management just announced its decision to impose a return to offices for 3 days per week for all employees. This announcement was made without any tangible justification or any consultation with the workers’ representatives.

After more than five years of working efficiently in the current remote-work context, many of our colleagues have built or rebuilt their lives (family life, housing, parenthood, etc.) and simply cannot return to the previous working conditions. Our employer knows this perfectly well. The consequence of its decision will be the loss of our colleagues’ jobs, the disorganization of many game projects, and the drastic increase in psychosocial risks for those who remain.

This decision is announced immediately after the failure of the profit-sharing negotiations. Exactly like previous salary negociations: management’s proposals were innaceptable, the negociations’ timetable was appalling, and management was deaf to the proposals of the various Employee representatives.

To express our anger, we call all Ubisoft employees in France to a first strike on October 15, 16 and 17. Gathering points will be announced in each studio for the 15th.

Our demands are:

A formal agreement on remote work: with a due process of real negotiation between management and unions. Not an arbitrary decision taken several months in advance. One which guarantees that each person can freely choose its number of remote days and when they are in the week, as well as beeing counted by the month and not by the week.
An immediate increase in all salaries to compensate for the drop in our living standards in recent years. The restoration of the profit-sharing at a 60% objective. The end of the gender pay gap and a higher increase in low salaries.
Actually listening to employees opinions by the implementation of a “social dialogue” worthy of the name. Management seems indeed to confuse monologue with dialogue.

We remind you, that in France, you benefit from a constitutional right to strike, more details here: The right to strike in private companies – STJV

Until proven otherwise, games only exist thanks to the workers’ labour, and good games thanks to good working conditions.

We invite our colleagues of all countries to mobilize as well

Video game industry to strike and demonstrate on October 1st for wages, pensions, public services and jobs

09/25/202410/20/2024

In spite of national protests, electoral results and the emergence of an anti-fascist front during the last French parliamentary elections, an illegitimate government has been imposed on us. This ultra-liberal, far-right – though it doesn’t dare admit it – government, is following in the footsteps of the policies we’ve been suffering from for the past 7 years: the destruction of everything that allows us to live.

In other words: ever fewer taxes for the rich, ever more public funds given to companies without anything in return, ever less budget for public services and wefare for those who need it… Coupled with the continued spread of far-right ideas, inaction in the face of ongoing genocides around the world, continuing inflation and the many lay-offs, in the video game industry and elsewhere, the future looks bleak if nothing changes.

Like every year, the beginning of October marks the start of parliamentary discussions on French state budgets, which govern public policy for the coming year. We need to demand funding for public services, the safeguarding of employment and the repeal of the latest pension reform.

Let’s all join forces, in continuation of past, present and future social movements in the video game industry, to demand better wages, the respect of our rights, guarantees for our jobs and democracy in the workplace.

To this end, joining other French unions, the Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo is calling for a strike in the video game industry on Tuesday, October 1, 2024. We call on video game workers, jobseekers, pensioners and students to mobilize in their companies and join the demonstrations taking place across France on that day.

We remind you that this call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore concerns anyone employed by a video game publishing, distribution, services and/or creation company, whatever their position or status and whatever their company’s field of activity (games, consoles, mobile, serious games, VR/AR, game engines, marketing services, streaming, derivative products, esport, online content creation, etc.), as well as all teachers working in private schools in video game-related courses. As this is a national strike call, there’s no need to take any action to go on strike: just don’t show up for work.

Strike at Kylotonn against Nacon’s strategy of silence

09/02/202410/20/2024

Workers at Kylotonn are on strike today Monday, September 2nd to support their colleagues at Spiders.

Both studios are property of the Nacon group and encounter similar problems such as: hiring, turn over, a general lack of information about the future of our companies and the productions…

Management regularly brings up the studios’ supposed independence, but every demand we make gets rejected with the argument that there should be coherence within the Nacon group. Much in the same way, negotiations are hampered under the same pretense.

If no improvement in our working conditions is offered because “it would drive other studios within the group to ask for the same”, it stands to reason then that we make those demands together.

We thank the respective management of our studios for raising awareness of the group’s importance, and are now working on consolidating it. This is why, as workers at Kylotonn, we are expressing our solidarity with our colleagues at Spiders and are calling for a strike on September 2nd!

Open letter from Spiders’ workers to their employer

08/27/202410/20/2024

[08/31/2024] Update from the Spiders workers’ action committee: Spiders management met with workers on Friday morning. We are pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss a number of issues with them, but we are still waiting for concrete measures and commitment from them. A second open meeting is scheduled for Monday morning. We are maintaining our call for a strike next week. A picket will be held on Monday morning starting at 9:30 a.m. in front of Spiders’ offices at 6 Rue André Voguet in Ivry-sur-Seine, and we are inviting our supporters to join us there. Workers will also be meeting online.

This open-letter from workers at Spiders to their employers is being published by the STJV at their request. Spiders is a paris-area studio 100% owned by Nacon. It produced games such as Greedfall and Steelrising, and is currently working on Greedfall 2 and an unannounced project.

This letter to our management follows an earlier open letter and a strike on January 19, which management has chosen to ignore. Since then, new negotiations have begun on wages, and conditions in the studio have continued to deteriorate. Today, it is with regret that we speak out publicly, in the hope that this will finally push management to act in the best interests of employees and the company.

This document covers several years of known problems, which have been greatly amplified over the past year with the arrival of the current head of the company : instability, opposition to anticipating problems and securing working conditions, global mismanagement, turnover and recruitment problems, unacceptable delays in achieving gender equality and parity, important lack of transparency, denial of problems, refusal to acknowledge worker representation and blocked negotiations.

Open letter to Spiders’ management – public version Télécharger

As of August 28, 2024, this letter has been signed by 43 workers at Spiders, out of 95.

We had demanded that the head of the company receive a delegation of Spiders’ workers to discuss all these points. She accepted, the delegation came to a meeting on August 27 and then waited in vain for the management to come, which it never did.

Call for strike action during the week of September 2

In light of management’s continued refusal to discuss, take the problems raised seriously and act to rectify them, we are calling on Spiders workers to go on strike during the week of September 2, 2024, on the basis of the demands set out above.

In particular, we will be organizing pickets on September 2 and 3 in front of the company’s offices and online on a Minecraft server created for the occasion.

We are inviting our relatives, friends, supporters, workers in the industry in general, journalists and political actors to join us at the pickets.

To help us strike, and if you have the means to do so, you can make a donation to the STJV strike fund, which has been activated for this strike at the request of the STJV section. Instructions on how to donate can be found on this page. Don’t hesitate to specify “Spiders” in the reference of your transfer. We’ll keep track of the sums paid to workers.

For any questions, messages of encouragement or inquiries, we invite you to contact in priority the Spiders workers’ action committee: . As a second resort, you can contact the STJV union section, which will pass on messages: .

Do not hesitate to ask for the files of the cartoons used in the letter, we can provide them by email.

Amplitude Studios: a collective victory at the mandatory 2024 negotiations

08/06/202410/26/2024

In a tough context for the video games industry, the STJV section of Amplitude Studios is pleased to report the encouraging results in the 2024 annual mandatory negotiations (NAO) with the studio’s management.

Along the past year, a delegation comprised of the STJV union delegate at Amplitude Studios and workers representatives from the CSE led the NAO 2024 to an agreement with the studio’s management.

These negotiations were concluded on an equal footing with management who, despite initial resistance, opened up to discussion thanks to the joint efforts of the STJV section and a keen interest shown by the studio’s workers.

An agreement was signed on June 17th, 2024, bringing Amplitude’s workers:

The abolition of the ETAM (employee) status and the promotion of every employee to the executive (Ingénieur et Cadre, IC) status of the SYNTEC collective bargaining agreement;
A minimum raise of 1400€ on the annual gross salary per employee for 2024 ;
A raise of internships stipend to 1300 € per month, as well as a raise of work-study contracts’ wages to a minimum of 1321 € ;
Better on-call duty working conditions for the relevant teams, including the provision of company smartphones ;
The introduction of a cap to the top-level salaries raises budget: Directors/Chiefs/Head of…

The switch to the Ingénieur et Cadres (executive) status for everyone is merely the correction of a pervasive injustice in our industry: everyone of us is practicing a skilled job, requiring autonomy and expertise. This status gives, among other things, access to better compensations in case of medical leave or layoff, as well as better retirement contributions. Find out more about the Syntec status in our practical guide.

Studio management also conceded the opening of a deep reflection about the studio’s compensation policy with the studio’s labor organizations (STJV section and workers’ representatives). It started in June 2024 and will last until the next NAO in March 2025.

The STJV section at Amplitude Studios thanks the employees for their involvement, and stays available for any feedback or questions they might be able to help on.

In these troubled times both for the video games industry and for France’s political landscape, it is easy to lose hope against rising inflation and attacks on our social rights. This victory stands as proof that together, we can obtain better work conditions for ourselves.

We encourage workers to join unions, and to get involved in fighting to preserve our rights and gain new ones.

Election emergency against the far right

06/13/202410/20/2024

We need to defend our rights and freedoms

Successive governments have destroyed public services, attacked justice and individual freedoms, and shattered labour laws. By legitimising far-right ideas and setting up fascism as a possible alternative, they have created the current situation.

Last Sunday, the far right came out well ahead in the French European elections. In the immediate aftermath, the President decided to add fuel to the fire by disbanding the National Assembly.

Legislative elections will be held in less than 3 weeks: the first round will take place on 30 June, and the second on 7 July. These elections may well bring the far right to power in France.

The far right in power means being caught between a rock and a hard place. Wherever it is in power, whether abroad or in our city halls, it follows the same programme:

deadly austerity, destruction of public services
undermining freedom of expression, of the press, of association and of trade unions
reducing access to culture, information and justice
attacking the rights of women, LGBT people, foreigners…

Everywhere the actions and votes of the far right prove that it is the enemy of workers. In France, for example, it has voted against: pay rises, housing benefits, increases in hospital budgets, and all ecological measures. Nor is it opposed to raising the retirement age…

We call on workers to mobilise against the far right and to join the demonstrations and rallies taking place on the weekend of 15 June.

We encourage workers to vote in the next elections to prevent the far right from coming to power, to get involved in the election campaign, which promises to be intense, and of course to get involved in the trade union and anti-fascist struggle which will be the only way for workers to win in the long term.

Do you have any questions about the electoral process, proxy voting, voter registration, etc.? We encourage you to get in touch with union activists near you or to contact us.

Let’s defeat the far right today through unity at the ballot box. Let’s defeat it tomorrow by fighting for social policies. Let’s make it disappear forever through solidarity and internationalism.

Stop the massacres in Palestine – day of action on 8 June

06/03/202410/20/2024

Since October, the violence perpetrated by the Israeli far-right and Israeli army against Palestinians has only increased, reaching genocidal proportions by imposing an unbearable siege on the population in which famine affects everyone and the Israeli army’s bombings and murders by drones are constant.

In the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been split in two for several months now, what little news is getting out is more catastrophic than ever, as this part of the world is effectively cut off from all supplies of water, food and healthcare.

In the south, Israel has forced Gazans to move to Rafah and along the Egyptian border, then near the sea in an ever smaller area where the density of displaced population is only increasing. The Israeli army is currently attacking and bombing this area full of civilians, breaking ever more despicable horror records.

In the West Bank, the settlers and the Israeli army are exploiting the situation, in line with Israel’s colonial policy, to multiply murders, violence, destruction, land seizures and humiliation of the Palestinian population.

Israel, with the support or complicit indifference of the majority of Western countries, including France, allows itself to ignore the condemnations and arrest warrants issued by international legal bodies, and is actively campaigning to weaken international law.

Mobilisations for a ceasefire, an end to the genocide in Palestine and the release of all hostages have continued non-stop since October, despite repression by the French government. They have resumed in earnest in recent days.

In this context, we communicated in October about the links between video games and the politics of violence around the world. Today, the STJV is joining the unitary call initiated by the CGT, and is calling on video game workers and the population as a whole to come together and demonstrate en masse on Saturday 8 June.

We demand:

an end to war crimes and crimes against humanity as named by the International Criminal Court
compliance with international humanitarian law
an immediate ceasefire and the lifting of the blockade on Gaza
an end to the bombing and forced displacement of the population
the protection of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank
the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas
the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held without trial in Israel;
an trade embargo on settlements in occupied Palestine
sanctions, including the suspension of the association agreement between the European Union and Israel
an immediate cessation of all military cooperation with Israel and all arms deliveries
a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis

Unacceptable pressure on negotiations at Spiders

05/07/202410/20/2024

While negotiations are taking place at Spiders on remote work and annual pay rises for 2024, company COO and SNJV (french employer’s organisation) president Anne Devouassoux took the liberty of demanding that the STJV change the company’s trade union delegate.

Negotiations at Spiders have been going on for several months now, and have been slowed down by the management’s attitude. The climate surrounding these negotiations is very tense. As our union delegate was on sick leave for 4 weeks, negotiations were necessarily put on hold during this period, but all we had to do was wait for his return to resume them.

Anne Devouassoux, who wants to roll back the freedom to work from home acquired within the studio and is offering workers “between 0 and 3%” pay increase, sent an unbelievable mail to our union and our delegate. In her letter, she tries to exert pressure on our representatives to put an end to negotiations altough they have no deadline. These actions constitute union discrimination against our delegate.

Before trying to intimidate a democratic and independent trade union, she could have turned to the STJV’s duly mandated negotiating delegation in her company.

Anne Devouassoux claims to represent employees and to be acting in their best interests, while at the same time threatening in a follow-up email to unilaterally terminate negotiations, which would lead to the imposition of rules that have been overwhelmingly rejected by Spiders’ workers, whatever the management is pretending internally. Whilst workers want negotiations to succeed, they do not want this to happen at any cost.

As an employer, and the president of an employers’ union to boot, Anne Devouassoux cannot claim to represent and defend the interests of workers, especially when she has explicitly refused to consult Spiders employees on the negotiations underway. Workers are represented by the elected staff representatives and the representative trade unions in the company.

We demand that she put an end to these gross manoeuvres, and that she respect employee representation, our trade union freedom and the principles of fair negotiation. The injunctions and allusions made in her letter and email are intolerable. Trade union discrimination is an offence under the French Labour Code and Criminal Code.

To ensure that negotiations run smoothly and reach a successful conclusion, we advise Spiders’ management to provide the delegation with the necessary information, listen to employees and accede to the demands of the STJV trade union section.

This advice applies to all companies. We will never give in to intimidation, and we will help all workers who are victims of it.