Sega of America workers ratify union contract, protecting 150 employees

Workers at Sega of America voted Tuesday to ratify their first collectively-bargained contract with the U.S. arm of the video game company, granting new protections and raises for about 150 full-time and temporary employees.

Workers in the union, known as Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS), won important concessions from Sega of America as part of the contract, including base-building raises for all employees, layoff protections, and a commitment to crediting people on games they’ve worked on, including early QA testers. It also affords employees in the union other protections, including letting workers pursue creative work in addition to their work at Sega and a guaranteed continuation of hybrid work.

Workers will also receive just cause protections, joining Tender Claws workers in being the only ones in the North American video game industry to have them, organizers said. In the state of California, where Sega of America’s offices are located, workers are employed at will — meaning employers can terminate employees for almost any reason, provided that reason is not unlawful. These protections mean employers must follow a series of strict guidelines before getting rid of a worker, whether through firing or other means.

Organizers for the union say contact negotiations between AEGIS-CWA and Sega of America spanned six months.

“One of our most notable items is our grievance process,” said Em Geiger, a localization editor at Sega of America, in an interview with Polygon. “There’s extra security knowing we have in place a system for bringing issues to the table, such as arguing just cause in a potential layoff. If the company wants to do something that the unit doesn’t like, we can grieve it, bargain over it, have our say before anything is finalized.”

Geiger described the bargaining process with Sega of America (SOA) as challenging, citing long hours, extra labor, and organizing resistance.

“One of the most difficult things about all of this was the mass layoff of temporary employees,” Geiger said, referring to cuts at Sega of America announced in January. “There is no understating the enormous hit we took to our support numbers, to morale, to our working relationships when SOA announced they were going to lay off temps. A contract cannot ensure you aren’t laid off. At the end of the day, it was a business decision. But the anger and the grief and the sorrow were natural responses for us. At the very least, we were able to negotiate severance packages for those who were at risk of losing their jobs.”

Earlier this year, Sega of America proposed laying off 61 employees at the company. AEGIS-CWA said that, through collective bargaining, it wound up saving the jobs of 18 of those people and won more favorable severance packages for laid-off employees.

Workers at the games studio and publisher announced their intent to unionize in April 2023. The union partnered with the Communications Workers of America and voted to officially form a union the following July.

AEGIS-CWA now represents employees across multiple departments at Sega of America’s headquarters in Burbank and its Irvine campus. Union employees work in a variety of roles, including brand marketing, localization, marketing services, product development, sales, and quality assurance.