A 6 million fund that management won’t let go of

On August 27th, following bitter negotiations, we at Quantic Dream signed an agreement for the ongoing redundancy plan (Plan de Sauvegarde de l’Emploi or PSE). In this tense context with an especially difficult social dialogue, we continue our annual mandatory negotiations (Négotiations Annuelles Obligatoires or NAO) which have been extremely disrupted or even paused by the redundancy plan. One element of those negotiations is « value sharing ».

Our main concern with this topic is a safeguarded budget of 6 million euros reserved for Quantic Dream employees in both Paris and Montréal. This amount was set aside following the purchase by NetEase in 2022 and was frozen to allow people joining the company later to receive a bonus linked to this purchase (people who were employed at that time received stock).

On August 5th, right in the middle of the redundancy plan, we had a « value sharing » negotiation. Together with Force Ouvrière, the other union present in the company, we voiced our request that this money be distributed this year, before the layoffs went into action. This makes complete sense: employees on all the company’s project will be laid off very soon. This budget was even presented as an upcoming bonus during some hiring interviews!

During this negotiation, management stated that they agreed with this request. They informed us that they would look into the banking operations required to gather the money and would come to us with a proposal.

Guillaume de Fondaumière, rends l’argent !

On September 10th, a month after the last meeting and two weeks after signing the redundancy plan agreement, we had a new meeting during which management changed its tone: they started explaining that the redundancy plan is now behind us, and we have to move on. Very kind words for the workers who have not yet lost their job and to the teams concerned about their future.

Management, beaming, claims that the previous meeting’s content was nothing but inconsequential discussion, and that they did not have a mandate at that point to negotiate the topic. There’s only one way to sum up their contempt: they’re taking the piss.

Management then explains being fully against using this money in 2026 before the layoffs. They consider that the people losing their jobs are already being compensated very generously, and remaining employees working on Star Wars Eclipse need further incentives. As if keeping your job was not incentive enough in an industry butchered by the mistakes of our studios’ leadership.

The proposed plan is now to distribute this budget after Star Wars Eclipse comes out, in case it makes significant profit, to the people still within the company. What happens if the project fails? If the ccompany closes for lack of support from NetEase? If there is a new redundancy plan? We deem it necessary to motivate the troops now, instead of attempting to dangle a hypothetical carrot that already leaves many people out.

It’s the same old song, played by all company executives: a purposefully unreachable goal, so money never get redistributed to workers.

Faced with this stern refusal by management to even discuss the topic, we slammed the door on the negotiation process. If management refuses to negotiate the topics they are not interested it, it is time for this to stop.

For exemple, we had two main requests for the « work time » annual mandatory negotiation: lower work hours (we are the only French videogame company working 40 hours a week by default), and securing remove work for the future via an agreement. Management steadily refused to discuss those topics. At Quantic Dream, this is called « peaceful social dialog ».

Violence has two faces

As a total coincidence, 6 million euros is also the amount that Guillaume de Fondaumière personally received when the studio was sold. We understand his frustration that David « Cage » de Gruttola got a better deal, pocketing thirteen times (!) more money adding up to 80 million euros. This is not a reason to avoid distributing money back to workers. Contrast that to the fact that we are told that layoffs were unavoidable for lack of money… In total, over 100 million euros were distributed in 2022, and we are told the last 6 millions will have to wait another couple years. It’s simply unacceptable.

On the next day, during a meeting aiming to remotivate the troops, Guillaume de Fondaumière took it upon himself to criticise our union communications with only the merest plausible deniability, deeming them violent. The manageriale bourgeoisie will always find it normal to push our colleagues out the door, and call any resistance « violent ». A few employees fed up by impulsive management and daring to react with a clown emoji is not true violence. True violence is communications from management where they blame Spellcasters’ failure on the teams, ungrateful swine that they are for failing to thank their bosses for giving them work (before firing them in cold blood).

Guillaume de Fondaumière expresses the wish that each and everyone may work peacefully inside the studio. A small bit of advice: distributing the money owed to the workers and avoiding regular insults to them in the company’s communications would be a first step towards that. That’s without even considering the layoffs: who can work in peace in a company where you might get fired at any time?

We have only one thing to tell Guillaume de Fondaumière : respect is earned, not decreed. As long as the managerial circus does not stop, workers will be angry. Whether or not we’re here, as long as you continue your unfair actions, they will be rightfully outraged. This is made worse by the double speak from NetEase, our sole shareholder: during the redundancy plan they were very close to closing the studio, two weeks later they have our back without reserve. How can we trust Quantic Dream’s management when they contradict themselves so?

At Quantic Dream, crunch is part of company culture. Every project’s final push has been especially difficult and every worker in the studio dreads the phase to come. It’s only logical that they feel wronged by inconsequential, violent leadership. It has to stop now.

Management must pay for its disgraceful acts

For all these reasons, and to make ourselves heard by this manegement that never misses a beat, we call for a renewable strike starting Tuesday, September 15th.

Our demands are as follows:

• for management to finally pay out the 6 millions fund to eligible employees, before the redundancy plan layoffs are applied;
• for management to reduce our work hours without lowering pay;
• for management to cease its contemptuous communication towards employees;
• for management to stop its constant union discrimination and its systemic defamation, failing which we will take all necessary legal measures.

Our strike fund is still open to support the current movement and the ones to come. It will allow money to be redistributed to strikers to blunt the financial consequences as much as possible. We encourage you to spread it far and wide.

We had warned that we would surrender nothing: case in point. We will fight as long as we have to against Guillaume de Fondaumière, David « Cage » de Gruttola, and the entirety of this clique that despises us so much.

Our comrades’ fight against a layoffs plan at Quantic Dream is still going on, and its developments are not over yet. As the end of negociations is near, our union section raises the alarm about the many irregularities in the processus.

Abuse against worker representatives

As we said in our last article, the studio’s executives seem to have a creative reading of the law: they imposed illegal deadlines, forced to keep terms that will not hold up under the labour administration’s examination… nothing to inspire confidence. Even more, they wasted half of the negociation time (6 weeks over a total of 3 months) to discuss the terms of negotiation. For those not familiar with “social dialogue”, these terms are the basis of every negotiation : they define the means, the calendar and the methods of negotiation. It guarantees that negotiations take place correctly, and is obviously crucial when 100 jobs are threatened.

It is sadly not all. Quantic Dream’s executives do not seem to understand that “social dialogue” includes “dialogue”. They refused to provide necessary documents by claiming that negotiators would “corrupt” them – whatever that means, they claimed our comrades were resorting to “fascist methods” (as we only asked for the law to be respected, the French Republic will like the insult), or kept banging on about how “the press should not be read, as it is just a pack of lies”. Without even going into what this says about the studio executives’ personalities, it is impossible to correctly negotiate layoffs when the company resorts to insults and violence at every step.

We also cannot go over the fact the our delegates formulated many propositions and demands, all along the negotiations, which the executives mostly ignored for the 4 meetings. During one of the last meetings, the company did not say a single word about the propositions that were made more than a week before. Is this the kind of diligence and respect that should be expected from our bosses when they want to lay off 115 workers?

Malicious intent and greed

It is clear that Quantic Dream’s management wants to limit itself to doing the bare minimum. When the company is affected neither by a weak market (which is doing fine, regardless of what bosses say) nor by a lack of worker motivation (their struggle shows how much they want to save their jobs and their work), it is normal to offer decent layoff conditions to help those who will lose their job just because their bosses decided so. At Quantic Dream, this is not the case. At every meeting, the company executives, and especially Guillaume de Fondaumière, simply didn’t listen. They showed that they only want to go as low as possible, forgetting that they are legally bound to conduct loyal negotiations, not turn them into a farce.

This third-rate money-grubbing translate into actions that are beyong understanding. For instance, the company is complaining about the training costs for laid-off workers, seemingly forgetting that it is a legal obligation. It is never enjoyable to pay one’s debts, so we would like Quantic Dream to share with us its magic trick to be exempted from it.

It is worth noting that Quantic Dream is a subsidiary of NetEase, a group which is doing really fine, and as such is able to offer more than decent layoff packages to the victims of its management. But their constant quest for more stinginess leads to an absurd situation, in which the executives’ offer would be less than what our comrades won at Don’t Nod, a company with way less financial support. It is disgusting to end up in this situation. If Quantic Dream wants to destroy jobs, it must pay.

What about the workers ?

Finally, we would like to talk about how the company is mistreating its employees. They suffer from the uncertainty created by this dubious plan, which will surely go into extra time. The psychosocial risks linger on even more as our comrades have no means to communicate clearly with workers, after executives cut off their legally-acquired rights to do so. Out of sight, out of mind?

We must also call out the gruesome fate set aside for the teams which worked on Spellcasters Chronicles. After their work was brutally unplugged earlier this year, the company sidelined them and stopped giving them work, for two months now. We must remind everyone that a work contract binds a worker, who rents its working force to an employer, who is under the obligation of giving them work. Before terminating contracts, Quantic Dream should first fulfil their most basic obligations.

To finish up with how workers’ fears are taken into consideration: while executives are trying to prevent worker representatives from communicating with workers about the ongoing negotiations, they do not hesitate to spread lies among the company. Over the past months, they never admitted to any of their failures, even the most obvious ones. On the contrary, David “Cage” de Gruttola congratulated himself about how lucky the soon-to-be laid off workers were to work on the game, as if working around him was a great privilege. Is this how one respects those who create the value exploited by the company?

Quantic Dream, criminal antics

We should make a slight digression: the ongoing procedure stops at the border, but we shall not forget our colleagues in Montreal, who are affected by around twenty layoffs as well. The (relative, as outlined in this article) protection offered by French law is not extended to them, although their situation is very similar to ours. We express our support and solidarity toward them. They deserve the same respect as workers in France.

This negotiation risks being just an act from executives who decided to do whatever they want, and only performed the “social dialogue” rather than actually listening to workers’ propositions. Our union section will fight until the end to ensure that Quantic Dream workers are respected and that, if the lose their jobs, it comes with decent compensation. This has been our message to the company from the first day of negotiations, and we stick to it.

We speak to every person who hindered these negotiations (they know who they are): if you do not respect the law when asked, you will suffer the consequences. We will defend our comrades and worker’s right to have dignified lives through their labour, whatever it will cost us.

Finally, to show off our determination and unity, we call for an open-ended strike at Quantic Dream starting on Wednesday, August 5^th. We condemn the shameful attitude of the company during these negotiations. We demand an extension to the negotiations and, at the very least, that the propositions from worker representatives be included in the layoffs plan.