Ubisoft: employees’ health should prevail over the myth of the genius creator

Press release from the STJV union section at Ubisoft Montpellier, with the support of the STJV union sections at Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Bordeaux, Ubisoft Annecy and Ubisoft Ivory Tower

Information has leaked externally about a former employee of Ubisoft, who left the company as the existence of an internal investigation about him was revealed in the press. He is currently involved in a project in an « exploratory phase », as an external consultant. This situation raises serious questions about the safety of workers, especially in terms of psycho-social risks. These concerns have been regularly raised internally for several months without any satisfactory response, in our opinion, from management.

We, members of the STJV union section at Ubisoft, offer our full support to all employees facing a situation that could expose them to psychosocial risks and invite them to contact us at the following addresses if they so wish:

Please note that we will guarantee anonymity to any employee who requests it.

Your involvement is essential if we are to put in place the necessary measures to protect your health and safety.

However, the main issue here is not the return of any one person, but the trust that we can all place in Ubisoft’s internal reporting procedures, particularly in the cases where these do not involve any employee representatives. What guarantees do we have that, in the future, other people who have been denounced as dangerous in the past will not work with Ubisoft again, using similar methods?

We find it very urgent to revise these procedures, and have Ubisoft take firm commitments to prevent cases of harassment, and stand by those.

It’s vital to get away from the belief that single individuals are indispensable to a project’s success.

More than ever: games are made through the collaborative efforts of workers, they are not the product of one or two « talents ».