February 14, this day traditionally dedicated to passion, could well be a moment of occasional disenchantment for some of the employees of the video game giant Ubisoft (21,000 employees, 40 studios worldwide, 1.8 billion euros in revenue). turnover for the 2022/2023 financial year).
A year and a month after the very first call for a strike by the Solidaires Informatique union, the latter, like the CFE-CGC FIECI and S + JV unions, is doing it again. In 2023 the call for strike responded to announcements of reorganizations and asset sales by Ubisoft which, for the first time since its creation in 1986, had to face a global decline in the video game market (-7% ) and these activities (-10%).
The union delegation demands a 5% increase
For this Valentine’s Day 2024, the call to strike primarily concerns wages. Although shaken by a harassment case involving several senior executives (which will be judged in March 2025 by the Bobigny court), the French studio Ubisoft is doing well financially. Between the last quarter and the previous one, its result jumped 14% to 633.5 million euros.
“Despite this, management only offers 2 to 3% increases depending on the studio when we ask for 5%,” explains Marc Rutschlé, Solidaires Informatique delegate. “It is lower than last year, lower than inflation, the management is making the deterioration of our living conditions its economic model,” assures the elected official, estimating that with a median salary including bac +5 between 38,000 and 43,000 euros/year upon leaving study, “video game employees are underpaid in France”.
Ubisoft management plans to negotiate again before February 14. In the event of failure, will the union appeal be followed? In Bordeaux Ubisoft, which distinguished itself by delivering, in October 2023, the highly anticipated game “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” mobilizes 426 people… who do not have a union representative to date and in 2023, the first was attended by around a hundred of employees, only in Paris.
2024-02-07 18:03:31
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