{"id":515,"date":"2026-08-21T20:30:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T01:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/?p=515"},"modified":"2026-08-26T20:31:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:31:34","slug":"save-our-game-workers-cwa-members-rally-across-u-s-and-canada-against-xbox-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/save-our-game-workers-cwa-members-rally-across-u-s-and-canada-against-xbox-layoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Save Our Game Workers: CWA Members Rally Across U.S. and Canada Against XBOX Layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this week, over 800 CWA members, video game workers, community organizations, and local labor allies held coordinated&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/actionnetwork.org\/event_campaigns\/save-our-devs-actions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cSave Our Devs\u201d rallies in the U.S. and Canada<\/a>&nbsp;to call out layoffs and corporate greed across the industry and to demand fair first contracts across Microsoft\u2019s gaming studios. The rallies were made possible by CWA Locals 1118, 2100, 2108, 6215, 7250, 9433, and 9510 in the U.S., and CWA-SCA Local 30111 in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last month, Microsoft\u2019s gaming division\u2014now rebranded as XBOX\u2014announced 3,200 planned job reductions across XBOX, with the first phase of layoffs scheduled to impact 1,600 XBOX workers, including hundreds of union members, in early September. CWA represents nearly 4,000 video game workers at XBOX throughout the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a result, CWA members and gamers alike have engaged in unprecedented resistance in response to Microsoft\u2019s unilateral actions. Last month, after a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cwa-union.org\/news\/releases\/union-video-game-workers-fight-rights-amidst-xbox-layoffs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press conference where XBOX workers demanded layoff protections<\/a>, over 500 workers and allies rallied at studio locations across the U.S. and Canada. XBOX fans also posted on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/feedbackportal.microsoft.com\/feedback\/idea\/69b8ec0b-7479-f111-9b47-6045bdbd0989\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft\u2019s official fan feedback website<\/a>&nbsp;to call out the layoffs, garnering over 4,000 upvotes and nearly 900 comments on the XBOX Player Voice forum. On July 15, CWA also filed&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nlrb.gov\/case\/16-CA-390759\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board<\/a>, alleging several labor law violations that require the employer to engage in decisional bargaining over discretionary layoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLike the people I read about in history books, I\u2019m here to fight for fair contracts for all the unionized workers in the video game industry. I\u2019m here to fight for all the game workers across an industry that has decided to put profits ahead of the workers who are the heart and soul of games,\u201d said ZeniMax Senior User Research and CWA Local 6215 member Elisabeth Whyte, who was impacted by July\u2019s layoffs. \u201cMy hope is that the gaming industry will one day return to a model that respects game workers, provides fair compensation, and doesn\u2019t treat a game launch as an opportunity to downsize or close studios.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Watch the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/uvw_cwa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">livestreamed rallies on UVW-CWA\u2019s Twitch<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, over 800 CWA members, video game workers, community organizations, and local labor allies held coordinated&nbsp;\u201cSave Our Devs\u201d rallies in the U.S. and Canada&nbsp;to call out layoffs and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"external_permalink":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cwa"],"external_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cwa6210.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}