Bethesda Game Studios union workers are preparing for a major rally action next week in protest of the recent wave of Xbox mass layoffs that impacted 440 union workers across both Bethesda and ZeniMax.
OneBGS, the CWA-affiliated Bethesda Game Studios union which represents workers behind games such as Fallout, Starfield, and The Elder Scrolls, is planning marches outside the studio’s four locations in Montreal, Canada; Rockville, Maryland and in Austin and Dallas, Texas on July 15 at 12:30pm Eastern time.
In a statement, the OneBGS organizing committee said the following:
The company wants us to accept this as a done deal and quietly disappear. We won’t let that happen. Our next steps are to mobilize. We need every single member visible and unified. To that end, we are announcing our Save Our Devs March across all studios on Wednesday July 15th.
We need to show management right now that we mean business, so they will properly take care of our fellow co-workers today and think twice before ever attempting something like this again. Stay strong, look out for one another, and we look forward to seeing us all marching together on the 15th.
According to OneBGS, a total of 440 union positions were eliminated across the Bethesda and ZeniMax unions during the mass layoffs earlier this week. WARN Act notices have offered further detail on the impact to studios as a whole, revealing that 96 individuals at id Software were let go, 40 remote workers also reporting into the Dallas studio, and 22 at BGS Austin, as well as 213 employees at ZeniMax Online in Maryland working on The Elder Scrolls Online and another 166 at ZeniMax Media. The layoffs impacted a total of roughly 1600 workers within Xbox alone, and 4800 across all of Microsoft together. Another 1600 layoffs are expected at Xbox in the coming 12 months. Xbox has undergone at least one mass layoff a year for the last three years.
In response, unions across Xbox have been demanding to negotiate layoff terms for their members. Multiple unions have been in contract negotiations with the company for months now, with union reps last week saying that Xbox had stalled discussions on the subject. OneBGS employees set up memorials in office common areas for their laid-off colleagues earlier this week, only to be told by HR to take them down.
Kotaku has reached out to Xbox for comment.
