Staff at development studio Spiders, developers of Greedfall and Steerlrising, have released an open letter to state they will be going on strike next week. The reasons for the strike action include management ignoring staff requests, pay disparity based on gender, high turnover, and poor employee support. In addition, staff have stated that the environment had led to problems on the development of Greedfall 2 and another, yet to be announced project.
The letter from the Spiders team, which can be read below, has been published by STJV, an independent French union which represents people working in the videogames industry.
This letter to our management follows an earlier open letter and a strike on January 19, which management has chosen not 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.
As of August 27, 2024, this letter has been signed by 44 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.
Workers at Spiders face many difficulties:
► GROWING INSTABILITY, because it is impossible for us to: know where we will be able to live in the future, know whether we will be able to have a fulfilling personal life, anticipate our long-term evolution at Spiders. But also because of low wages and a lack of certainty about increases over the next few years.
► A COMPLETE OPPOSITION TO ANTICIPATING PROBLEMS AND SECURING WORKING CONDITIONS due to : an ideological stance held by the company’s management and its refusal to acknowledge issues, the rolling back, for no good reason, of arrangements that had been in place for years, as well as rising pressure on the workers’ shoulders.
► GLOBAL MISMANAGEMENT: the studio tripling in size in 3 years and the launch of two lines of production side-by-side were, in all likelihood, not anticipated or planned for by the company. Its structure has evolved very little, if at all.
► GROWING TURNOVER AND RECRUITMENT PROBLEMS: many veteran workers are leaving the company. In response, the company is making little efforts to try and retain them, to find suitable in-house successors, or to make the company attractive to hiring prospects.
► UNACCEPTABLE DELAYS IN ACHIEVING GENDER EQUALITY AND PARITY: the gender balance at Spiders remains well below the already low industry average, and women employee’s average wage is considerably lower than men’s.
► A BLATANT LACK OF TRANSPARENCY ON ALL ASPECTS OF THE COMPANY: its management, budgets, plannings, financial health, working conditions… The company’s strategy remains unknown, no explanation is given for decisions imposed, and their source is often hidden from us.
► PROBLEMS ARE NOT TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT, AND THEIR VERY EXISTENCE DENIED: despite having been brought up with management for years through every possible channel, problems are either ignored or worse, their very existence is outright denied and questioned.
► A DIFFICULT PRODUCTION CYCLE FOR GREEDFALL 2: as a direct consequence of these problems, there is widespread anxiety and a loss of interest among employees. For many, it translates into a fear of releasing a disappointing game at the end and/or a feeling of shame over their own work. For some, it’s the last straw that pushes them to look for work elsewhere.
► MANAGEMENT’S ADAMANT REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE COLLECTIVE ACTION: at the slightest opportunity, management is reducing everything to confidential individual negotiation, accentuating inequalities between workers and paving the way for discrimination and abuse.
► MANAGEMENT’S SENSELESS REFUSAL TO ACCEPT WORKER REPRESENTATION: they challenge and belittle the legitimacy of staff representatives and collective expression in any shape or form, while also refusing to consult workers themselves.
► NEGOTIATIONS WITH NO POSSIBLE COMPROMISES: the mission of workers’ representatives, as well as negotiations on wages and work from home, are impeded by the management’s infantilizing contempt for workers and its refusal to enforce its obligations, particularly when it comes to sharing information.
A much longer and detailed letter has also been published by STJV, and that letter can be accessed at this link. Spiders has been contacted for comment about the upcoming strike, and we will publish the studio’s response if and when we receive one.
