Ubisoft Barcelona workers on Thursday have announced a strike call to cope with the cuts in the teleworking policy that wants to implement the French multinational responsible for video games such as Assassin’s Creed either Rainbow Six.
The CGT union section of this Development Study based in the Diagonal 00 Tower of Barcelona has reported that this protest will take place next Thursday, February 13, and that it will coincide with the strike day that that same day will carry out that same day All companies in the sector in France to protest the cuts in the sector.
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It is necessary to clarify that Ubisoft has two development studies in the city. One of them is Ubisoft Barcelona, which is the division responsible for participating in the development of large -budget games and was founded in 1994; And the other is Ubisoft Barcelona Mobile, which is the division centered on mobile games, which opened its doors in 2002 and whose current office is also in the district of Sant Martí.
The strike call at Ubisoft Barcelona will be the first to live the video game industry in Spain. The 190 study workers are summoned to participate in it with the aim of opposing the company’s intention to reduce remote work hours, a change in the working conditions that already led to the workers of both divisions to denounce the company last November, and whose judgments that are still waiting for date.
‘Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege’ is one of the main developments of Ubisoft Barcelona in recent years
According to the statement shared by the CGT union section, the only union with presence in the company, the reason that has initiated this conflict is “the imposition of a new remote work policy without dialogue with the workforce.”
Among the new working conditions imposed by the company to all workers in the study is the reduction of teleworking by 33 percent and the obligation to attend in person three days a week. This new system would replace the current for almost five years, which contemplated 60 percent of the month of remote work (at the worker’s choice).
Remote work, a very widespread practice in the video game sector
It should be noted that the video game sector, especially from the pandemic, has turned remote work into a very common practice. According to study workers consulted by this newspaper, in the case of Ubisoft Barcelona, the possibility of being able to work remote was one of the main claims of these jobs.
The game might & magic elementary guardians has been developed by Ubisoft Barcelona Mobile
When last November the workers denounced the company, they already stressed that this modification in the work policy “is a terrible change for conciliation” and “a decision made suddenly and without transparency.” In addition, they also shouted in the sky because they consider it a change that “generates important logistics problems, since the offices are not prepared to admit such a volume of people at the same time.”
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Company workers’ sources affirmed to this newspaper that Ubisoft Barcelona justifies these changes under the idea of ”promoting creativity”; However, they consider that it is a “substantial modification of working conditions” that especially affects those workers who depended on the possibility of working remotely. According to the union section of the CGT, these changes “suggest that the company would be actively worsening working conditions to force volunteer dismissals.”
This newspaper also contacted Ubisoft but the company declined statements regarding this news.
The strike call also coincides with the recent announcement that Ubisoft will fire almost two hundred employees as part of a new restructuring plan. This last batch of layoffs was known at the end of last January and has affected the studies that this multinational has Leamington, England, of which the closure was announced, and in the studies of Ubisoft Dusseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections, in which personnel cuts have been announced.
Global crisis in the video game sector
Image of the video game ‘Star Wars Outlaws’, in which Ubisoft Barcelona has participated
The video game industry passes this 2024 due to a delicate situation at the international level that has already caused more than 13,000 layoffs and dozens of studies closures. Market saturation, caused by a great offer of games, is one of the main causes, but there is more. You also have to add the increasingly less purchasing power of the players, the capacity of the great titles of retaining users and the erratic planning of many companies during the pandemic – in which the consumption of video games was fired.
In the specific case of Ubisoft, the situation of this video game giant does not Star Wars OutlawsThey are not generating the expected income.
Changes in working conditions and the withdrawal of privileges not only affect Ubisoft employees in Barcelona. Between October 15 and 17, Ubisoft workers in their studies located in France declared a strike to protest against the refusal of the management to negotiate on two issues: the flexibility of remote work and remuneration that have not followed the Rhythm of inflation.
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Video games
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