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ZeniMax and Microsoft ratify union agreement
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ZeniMax and Microsoft ratify union agreement

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Members of the ZeniMax Workers United-CWA union have ratified the contract agreement with parent company Microsoft. This agreement with the union representing the video game studio’s quality assurance employees marks the first time Microsoft has entered into any union contract in the US. ZeniMax Studios is probably best known for its work on The Elder Scrolls Online. Stephen Totilo first reported on this news; we’ve reached out to Microsoft and the Communications Workers of America for additional comment.

As with many organizing efforts, this step has been a long time coming. The group of employees voted to unionize in 2023, and Microsoft immediately recognized ZeniMax Workers United-CWA following the vote results. Microsoft also made its policy of neutrality toward union organizing at ZeniMax official in 2024. The QA workers from ZeniMax and Microsoft reached a tentative contract this May.

The contract includes provisions for wage increases and minimum salaries, as well as industry-specific content such as a clearer crediting policy recognizing the role of QA and protections for the employees regarding use of AI.



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US actors union suspends year-long video game strike following "tentative agreement" over AI
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US actors union suspends year-long video game strike following “tentative agreement” over AI

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Days after announcing a “tentative agreement” had been reached with key video game companies, US actors union SAG-AFTRA has called off its nearly year-long strike, instructing members to return work on productions that fall under its Interactive Media Agreement.


The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which represents around 160,000 members, announced a strike affecting all work under its Interactive Media Agreement – which includes video game voice acting and other roles – last July. The move came after the union failed to reach an agreement with major video game companies as it renegotiated the terms of the contract, despite more than 18 months of discussions.


While SAG-AFTRA had successfully managed to negotiate on a variety of critical issues – including wages in-line with inflation, and job safety – sufficient protections against the exploitative use of AI remained a key sticking point. Back in March, eight months after the strike began, SAG-AFTRA said proposals from video game companies were still filled with “alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to AI abuse”.


Earlier this week, however, SAG-AFTRA announced it had finally reached a “tentative agreement” with companies including Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Insomniac Games, and Warner Bros. that included the “necessary AI guardrails” it had been pushing for. And now, following that news, SAG-AFTRA national executive director & chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland has officially suspended the strike against the companies signatory to the Interactive Media Agreement, as of noon PT today.


“All SAG-AFTRA members are instructed to return to work on productions under the IMA,” the union wrote in its announcement, “including work promoting or publicising projects produced under the IMA. The SAG-AFTRA National Board will meet in special session tomorrow, 12th June, 2025, to consider the tentative agreement. If approved, it will be sent out for ratification by the union’s membership in accordance with established policy.”


Yesterday, UK actors’ union Equity applauded the “tenacity and persistence” of SAG-AFTRA members after news of the tentative agreement broke. Equity protested outside the BAFTA Games Awards in April, calling on the games industry to improve conditions for performers, including better pay and terms and conditions for their work, as well as AI protections.



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Microsoft And Video Game Workers Union Reach Tentative Agreement On Labor Contract
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Microsoft And Video Game Workers Union Reach Tentative Agreement On Labor Contract

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The Communications Workers of America, the union representing QA testers at ZeniMax, announced today that it has reached a tentative agreement on a labor contract with Microsoft. If implemented, this contract will be one of the first to go into effect at one of the big AAA game publishers.

Last month, the union voted to authorize a strike in response to challenges to the contract negotiation process; this agreement would avoid a strike from being carried out. In a press release, CWA shared that the agreed contract would grant ZeniMax employees significantly increased protections and would raise pay across the board. It would also implement guidelines on the use of AI, restrict “arbitrary dismissal,” and create processes to ensure that QA testers adequately receive credit in video games that they contribute to.

QA testing has been a hotspot of unionization efforts in the games industry, some of which have been targeted with union-busting efforts. At ZeniMax, the QA testers’ union represents around 300 employees and has been fighting for several years for this contract. In response to the agreement, Jessee Leese, a QA tester and union representative at ZeniMax, stated, “Video games have been the revenue titan of the entire entertainment industry for years, and the workers who develop these games are too often exploited for their passion and creativity. Organizing unions, bargaining for a contract, and speaking with one collective voice has allowed workers to take back the autonomy we all deserve.”

In early 2023, ZeniMax employees created ZeniMax Workers United-CWA, a coalition of CWA units embedded in the company that was made possible under Microsoft’s neutrality agreement with union activism. Since then, unionization has expanded at Microsoft to include more teams; earlier in May, for instance, the Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard announced that it has fully unionized. There are now over 2,000 unionized employees at Microsoft.

This contract still needs to complete several hurdles before it can be fully implemented. Now that both parties have tentatively agreed, the union will hold a series of explanation sessions for its members to learn about its provisions. Then, in late June, CWA expects to hold a ratification vote among its members.

Disclosure: The author of this article is a member of CWA by way of a graduate student union.



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Staples Union & Scale Electric Standing Desk Review: Micro Movements
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Staples Union & Scale Electric Standing Desk Review: Micro Movements

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The desk height ranges from 25.5 to 51.1 inches, and the dual motors glide effortlessly up and down, and they’re not too loud. You’ll want to be careful when lowering it—there’s collision detection, and it successfully stopped the desk from crushing a stool after I put it underneath, but it seems to depend on where the object under the desk is. I rolled my seat in so that the arms of my chair were directly under the desktop, and when I pressed the lower height preset, the desk kept going and would have probably broken my chair arms (or toppled forward) had I not forced it to stop. Maybe had I not stopped it, the sensor would have paused the operation automatically, but it was a little too close to my liking.

I haven’t noticed much wobbling when the desk goes up and down, though if you put pressure on the front of the desk (maybe you’re leaning forward with your elbows on the surface), there’s a slight forward shift. This didn’t cause any problems.

Staples offers a seven-year warranty for the motor and legs, along with a few other parts, but the control box, cables, control panel, and desktop are only covered for five years. That’s about the same as what you’ll find on a Flexispot, though short of desks like the Branch Duo that don’t cost that much more. The nice thing about buying from Staples is that returns are always free, and you can drop it off at a nearby retail store (though you’ll still have to disassemble it).

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Small Shift

The middle button on the control panel turns on Micro Movement mode, and at first, I thought it didn’t work, but that was because I didn’t realize how micro the movements are. Once turned on, the desk will move up 2.36 inches within five minutes, stop for two minutes, then move down the same amount in another five-minute increment. This will repeat after 48 minutes and cycle four times throughout four hours.

Staples says this will help reduce fatigue and encourage movement—subtle shifts in posture and muscle engagement—but the only reason I started noticing it was because my arms felt pinched. I set the desk up perfectly to my height and seat—my elbows sat level with the desktop without touching the surface. But for a few minutes with this feature turned on, my elbows suddenly were resting on the edge of the table, and it wasn’t pleasant. It works a little better when you’re standing, though you’ll still feel your arms resting on the table as the desk creeps upward.

I didn’t find the Micro Movements feature helpful. I didn’t feel like it encouraged movement, and I’m still fatigued from, well, everything. The best part of a standing desk is that it enables you to stand up, which will hopefully then induce some actual movement throughout your workday. The Micro Movements feel akin to the active seating hype, which has never felt particularly effective.

Thankfully, it’s an optional feature, and you can ignore it. And you probably should if budget is on your mind, because Staples has other dual-motor 55-inch desks without this feature, but they’re not cheaper. You can size down to the 48-inch standing desk, but it only has a single motor.

This Union & Scale is a solid desk for the money, with easy assembly, simple configuration, and a dual-motor system that operates smoothly. That said, Flexispot’s desks have more desktop customization options, sizes, colors, and accessories you can add on, and they cost roughly the same, if not less. I’ve had more trouble with Flexispot’s assembly process in the past, though, if that’s worth something.



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ZeniMax QA workers win tentative union contract with Microsoft
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ZeniMax QA workers win tentative union contract with Microsoft

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After two years of negotiating, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA, the union representing quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Media, has reached a tentative union contract with Microsoft, according to the Communication Workers of America. The union originally formed in 2023 and was immediately recognized by Microsoft, which made its commitment to stay neutral towards union organizing at ZeniMax official in 2024.

The new contract will cover over 300 ZeniMax employees and includes “substantial across-the-board wage increases as well as new minimum salaries for workers,” the CWA says. The contract also includes language protecting workers from the impacts of AI and “a crediting policy that clearly acknowledges the QA workers’ contributions to the video games they help create.”

“Video games have been the revenue titan of the entire entertainment industry for years, and the workers who develop these games are too often exploited for their passion and creativity,” Jessee Leese, a QA tester and ZeniMax Workers United-CWA bargaining committee member shared in the CWA announcement. “Our first contract is an invitation for video game professionals everywhere to take action. We’re the ones who make these games, and we’ll be the ones to set new standards for fair treatment.”

The new contract is considered “tentative” until union members ratify it, but because existing contracts often act as a reference in ongoing negotiations, the agreements ZeniMax workers secured will likely serve as a standard for other unions going forward. ZeniMax QA testers aren’t the only video game union at Microsoft — QA workers at Raven Software, QA workers at Activision, workers at ZeniMax Online Studios and the development team behind Overwatch are all still in active negotiations with the company.

Outside of Microsoft, the CWA also announced the United Game Workers-CWA union at this year’s GDC, as a another option for representation. United Game Workers-CWA is a direct-join union, a labor organization that all workers in an industry can participate in without needing legal recognition from an employer. The idea is that currently employed workers, anyone who’s been laid off and freelancers can all still wield power together, even without a potential contract hanging in the balance.



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Bethesda Devs Win Union Contract After Threatening To Strike
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Bethesda Devs Win Union Contract After Threatening To Strike

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Image: Bethesda / Microsoft

ZeniMax Workers United just became the biggest game developer union in the country yet to win a contract at a major publisher. The group of over 300 quality assurance testers across franchises like Fallout and Doom secured an agreement with Microsoft that includes wage increases, salary minimums, and crediting procedures.

Why People Are Rushing To Sell Their Xbox Series X To GameStop Right Now

“Video games have been the revenue titan of the entire entertainment industry for years, and the workers who develop these games are too often exploited for their passion and creativity. Organizing unions, bargaining for a contract, and speaking with one collective voice has allowed workers to take back the autonomy we all deserve,” ZeniMax QA tester and bargaining committee member Jessee Leese said in a press release. “Our first contract is an invitation for video game professionals everywhere to take action. We’re the ones who make these games, and we’ll be the ones to set new standards for fair treatment.”

The contract will now go to the full membership for review with a ratification vote planned for June 20. Once completed, ZeniMax devs, including staff at Bethesda Game Studios, will have won the biggest collective bargaining agreement yet of any of the major gaming unions that have formed in recent years. Sega of America staff secured their first union contract last year, while developers at other Microsoft-owned studios, including the Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft teams at Blizzard, as well as Call of Duty testers at Raven Software, continue bargaining.

The ZeniMax contract comes just two months after union employees there threatened to go on strike if an agreement wasn’t reached following a nearly two-year-long negotiation process. The Communications Workers of America, which represents ZeniMax Workers United and other Microsoft gaming unions, previously filed an unfair labor practice charge against the tech giant claiming it was slow-walking the talks. The new contract, once ratified, will provide important benchmarks for other teams currently hashing out agreements.

Correction 5/30/2025 6:56 p.m. ET: Sega of America workers were the first union at a major gaming company to secure a contract.

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Video game voice actor union takes Fortnite's Darth Vader chatbot to court
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Video game voice actor union takes Fortnite’s Darth Vader chatbot to court

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Video game voice-actor union SAG-AFTRA are launching a legal case against the presence of generated AI voice-acting for Darth Vader in Epic’s battle royale Fortnite. They’re accusing the company’s subsidiary Llama Productions of using AI to “replace the work of human performers” – or at least, of replacing human performers without first haggling out terms with the union.

The AI-voiced Vader character was added to Fortnite last week, in collaboration with the family of James Earl Jones, the original voice of Darth. Track down and recruit him and you’ll be able to take turns generatively bantering with Fauxnakin. Needless to say, the addition has proven a hit among the furiously masticating hamsters of social media. Also needless to say, players have swiftly worked out how to bait DAIrth VAIder into dropping F-bombs
and slurs, though at the time of publication, Epic appear to have addressed this in a patch.

Now, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have filed an unfair labour practice charge against SkAIwalker Senior with the US National Labor Relations Board.

“We celebrate the right of our members and their estates to control the use of their digital replicas and welcome the use of new technologies to allow new generations to share in the enjoyment of those legacies and renowned roles,” the union wrote in a statement. “However, we must protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members, including those who previously did the work of matching Darth Vader’s iconic rhythm and tone in video games.

“Fortnite’s signatory company, Llama Productions, chose to replace the work of human performers with A.I. technology,” it continues. “Unfortunately, they did so without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms. As such, we have filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB against Llama Productions.”

The court document itself claims that Llama Productions have “failed and refused to bargain in good faith with the union by making unilateral changes to terms and conditions of employment, without providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain, by utilizing AI-generated voices to replace bargaining unit work on the Interactive Program Fortnite”.

SAG-AFTRA – who represent a spectrum of workers across the media and entertainment sphere – have often gone to bat with the video games industry over the usage of human voice-acting to “train” bots, and the potential replacing of voice-acting in games with genAI. Following a lengthy negotiation over AI protections with the likes of GTA 6 publisher Take-Two and Call Of Duty household Activision, they called a strike last July in the name of “fair compensation and the right of informed consent”. The strike continues. Some video game voice and performance artists have, however, criticised SAG-AFTRA for striking deals with individual genAI companies.

All this forms part of the wider, on-going debate about the ethics and legalities of generative AI – our Electric Nightmares essay series remains a good primer. While voice actors contest the loss of work, other organisations are picking fights with the genAI biz over copyright infringement.

According to an Epic Games blog post, the Darth Vader chatbot in Fortnite makes use of two AI models – Google’s Gemini and ElevenLabs’ Flash. Gemini was recently hit by a $271 million fine over copyright breach, with France’s competition watchdog accusing the search engine company of “training” the bot with material from publishers and news agencies without notifying them. Google have pledged not to contest these facts as part of settlement proceedings.



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