Quality Assurance (QA) workers at Keywords Studios’ Edmonton, Canada location, which supports BioWare projects like Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, have voted unanimously in favor of a union, they announced Monday.
The Alberta Labor Board counted the votes Monday and found that the 16 eligible QA workers voted yes.
A representative of the new Keywords workers’ union said negotiations would begin this week. A representative of Keywords Studios told Polygon in a statement on its website:
Keywords Studios accepts the vote of the 16 Edmonton employees who have chosen to unionize. We value our people and will continue to strive to be a good entrepreneur. As an organization we want to ensure an attractive experience for all our employees and we take our staff’s concerns seriously. We will continue to have a constant dialogue with everyone on the Edmonton team as we move forward together, always learning and improving.
“We’re excited,” James Studios, a QA employee at Keywords Studios and a member of the organizing committee, told Polygon on Monday. “We are super happy. It will help us move forward in the negotiation that the whole team is fully united in this effort.”
Keywords QA workers in the study began talking about unionization in March after the study implemented a return-to-office order that involved hundreds of dollars in additional expenses for worker travel. Already frustrated by low wages, workers found that higher travel costs are harder to swallow and also found that the flexibility of working from home was a significant benefit. Employees at Keywords Studios QA said they do not receive paid time off, which also made it more difficult to return to the office. Developing any symptoms of COVID-19 would mean having to take a day off personally, rather than just being able to work from home.
“We all got together and started talking about what it would be like in terms of costs for each of us individually,” James said. “We had a choice. We can try to quit and go find another job, but we love what we do. We don’t want to leave. So we decided to try to form a union to see if we can drive any positive change in our workplace.” .
Keywords Study QA workers are organized under the Food and Trade Workers Union of Canada, local number 401. The group filed proceedings at the Alberta Labor Relations Board in April.
Keywords Studios was founded in 1998, with headquarters in Ireland and more than 20 offices worldwide. Keywords itself does not publish or develop its own games, but provides art, audio, quality assurance and development support for other studios.
Keywords Studios lists BioWare, owned by Electronic Arts since 2007, EA, Square Enix, and Blizzard Entertainment among several AAA studios and publishers it supports. The Edmonton team, in particular, has worked on BioWare games such as Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and a Star Wars: The Old Republic expansion. The team is currently working on the upcoming Dragon Age.
The Key Studios union vote comes two weeks after Raven Software’s Activision Blizzard QA workers formed a union with a 19-3 vote.
Labor organization and unionization in the video game industry are more common outside of North America; the technology industry in North America has historically been considered anti-union. Video game workers, in particular, have reported working long hours (sometimes up to 100 a week in crisis conditions) and low pay. QA workers, in particular, told Polygon in 2021 that they often feel disposable, with a minimum wage and hired work cycles.
Workers are pushing for a change in this environment, however, with QA workers leading the initiative for fairer working conditions.
James, a QA employee at Keywords Studios, said the Keywords union has been in contact with colleagues at Raven Software, who have backed up their efforts by sharing experiences and anti-union tactics to consider. They have also received support from Game Workers Unite Montréal, an organization that advocates for the rights of workers and unions in the video game industry.
“We’re more likely to get better working conditions together,” James said.
Update: This story has been updated to include a Keywords Studios statement.