Developers and members of the United Videogame Workers of CWA union marched through the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday, a demonstration similar to the one held at last year’s GDC. This year, UVW organizers are announcing a campaign demanding protection for game workers from ICE in the US and sharing a draft of their planned “Game Workers’ Bill of Rights.”
The group of around 50 developers chanted “videogames are worker-made” and “game workers united will never be defeated.” Out at Yerba Buena, organizers shared a first draft of their “Bill of Rights,” a set of universal protections that it plans to help shop unions like the ones at Blizzard and ZeniMax bargain for and even use as a template for new unions or freelancers to advocate for themselves using.
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Suggested protections in the bill of rights handed out include protections from AI use being required by companies or used as replacement for workers, anti-crunch policies, and protections for remote workers. It also suggests protections for workers in the US who are immigrants and could be targeted by ICE agents.
It’s a busy week for UVW-CWA which is announcing a wider “We don’t play with ICE campaign,” this week as well and has announced a free Gamer Workers Conference to be held online in May this year.