Employees of Nacon’s Spiders studio Greedfall 2 have written an open letter “to their employer” detailing years of grievances and calling for a strike in response to management’s “continued refusal” to take their concerns seriously. The letter was signed by 44 of Spider’s 95 employees document, made public by the French trade union Stjv in the hope that “this will finally force management to act in the best interests of employees and the company.”
This document describes well-known problems that have existed for several years and that have become much worse over the past year with the arrival of the current head of the company: instability, resistance to anticipating problems and securing working conditions, global mismanagement, problems with turnover and recruitment, unacceptable delays in achieving gender equality and parity, a sedate lack of transparency, denial of problems, refusal to recognise employee representation and blocked negotiations.
The open letter is the second by disgruntled Spiders employees, following an earlier document and a related strike on January 19. “Since then,” the workers in question write, “new wage negotiations have begun and conditions at the studio have continued to deteriorate.”
The document itself consists of 20 pages outlining the issues, and ends with a list of demands “to secure our lives, our careers, and our company in the short and long term.” The issues listed include “a blatant lack of transparency across all aspects of the company,” “Greedfall 2’s difficult production cycle,” and “management’s steadfast refusal to recognize collective action.”
Their demands include, broadly speaking, greater transparency and employee representation, an end to “authoritarian and ineffective centralization of power,” greater freedom to work from home, pay increases comparable to other Nacon studios, and “immediate redress of all pay discrimination against women and non-binary people.”
The document also features several comics featuring characters from the Spiders games.
“In the face of management’s continued refusal to discuss, take seriously, and take action to fix the issues raised,” Spiders employees are calling for a strike, set to take place next week, starting September 2. “In particular, we will be holding pickets on September 2 and 3 in front of the company’s offices, and online on a Minecraft server created for the occasion.”
We’ve had some positive news on the labor front recently. In the same week last month, Bethesda Game Studios and World of Warcraft employees formed unions. Solidarité, Spiders.
