Former Nintendo President Reggie tells companies to embrace unions

In an interview yesterday, former US Nintendo president Reggie Fels-Aim was asked about his thoughts on syndicates, which currently barely exist in the video game industry. Fils-Aime’s response wasn’t a stark endorsement of the unions, with the former CEO saying they’re neither good nor bad, just a situation to deal with. But he added that companies must embrace unions if their employees want to.

Unions in the air, as yesterday, the staff at Raven Software – a studio where I work Call of Duty Warzone. Call of duty– Make history when Its QA employees voted to create a union, becoming the first consortium in a large-scale AAA video game company. follow it Months of union busting from Parent company Activision Blizzard. As a result, some of the major players in the video game industry have been asked about their thoughts on unions. This includes Fils-Aime, who was on a press tour for his recently released memoir. yesterday, interview with The Washington Postwhere he was asked about the upcoming Raven Guild vote and the industry’s growing push for regulation.

In response, Fils Im indicated that we are currently witnessing Huge boost to unions across the country And a wide range of industries, so it’s no surprise that this happens in the gaming world as well. Fils-Aime blames Covid and many companies ignoring “systemic issues” as the reasons for this significant union pressure, adding that “union formation is a good thing”.

“As a leader, you have to look very seriously, and if that is what your employees want, you need to address and embrace that, and move on,” said Phils Aim.

Then, oddly enough, he seemed to change his mind mid-answer, saying that unions aren’t “a good or bad thing.”

“I’ve worked in industries that have seen high levels of unionization,” Phils Aimee explained. “This is neither a good nor a bad thing. It is a situation that you as a leader and as an executive need to manage just like any other challenge, issue or opportunity you face.”

Fils-Aime spokesperson reached Kotaku He had nothing else to add.

Calls for the video game industry to form unions increased as more and more stories emerged of poor working conditions, low wages, and abuse at major video game studios and publishers.

just last month, Kotaku I mentioned how much Contract workers at Nintendo felt like second-rate workers And he suffered from bad salaries. One employee even claimed he was fired after speaking about unions at a meeting, leading to a A formal complaint is submitted to the National Labor Relations Board. IGN Similar complaints and stories were reported from contract workers at Nintendo.

In response to these reports, Im fils said Washington Post “It wasn’t Nintendo that I left” and that he had always been able to foster a healthy work culture during his 13 years at the company, noting that he held regular lunches with employees where contract workers were free to sign up and attend. However, according to Kotaku Sources, these lunches were held in a building that contract workers lacked access to, and one worker explained that while they had heard about these meetings, they never knew that any contract workers would be allowed to join.

In other Reggie Fils-Aime news, He wishes he could sell animal crossing Island via the blockchain and Did not like Game Boy Micro. 2022 is a strange year, for all of you.