The Union of 300 ZeniMax Quality Assurance Employees is Officially Founded

We were telling you about it almost a month ago. Some employees of the large ZeniMax group – at the head of Bethesda in particular – belonging to Microsoft since 2020 launched a unionization process in the wake of what has been known throughout the year at Activision Blizzard. Microsoft finally kept its word by letting these 300 ZeniMax QA workers found Microsoft’s first video game union, but also the largest in the gaming industry to date.

Major breakthrough for ZeniMax employees, word kept for Microsoft

Last week, the studio Proletariat Inc., belonging to Blizzard since this year, announced the launch of a unionization process on the part of 57 of its employees. This would make it the third in the ABK group after the first two were founded this year: the Game Workers Alliance in May 2022 and the Blizzard Albany testers union in July 2022.

The studio Proletariat Inc. rightly supported its approach with the management of ABK by asking the group to take the example of Microsoft and not to try to slow down the unionization of employees as happened at the beginning of the year at Blizzard.

Indeed, Microsoft had undertaken earlier in the year to remain neutral in all unionization initiatives carried out within the group’s studios and the finalization of the creation of a new union at ZeniMax now proves it to us. The company’s 300 quality assurance employees have officially just created this colossal union without Microsoft opposing it at one time and remaining neutral. The next step is now that of contract negotiations. An interesting model that we hope will inspire other employees in the gaming industry to unionize and other companies to take the same position.