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'Gig economy' workers union IWGB opens branch for UK video games employees

"As part of the IWGB, we will have the tools to fix this broken sector and create an ethical industry where it's not only big game companies that thrive, but workers as well”

'Gig economy' workers union IWGB opens branch for UK video games employees

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain has opened a chapter for employees from the video games industry.

The organisation today announced that it would be looking to tackle excessive and often unpaid overtime, crunch, zero-hours contracts - particularly for QA employees - and a lack of diversity and inclusion in the industry.

Developer support

The first meeting of the IWGB's Games Workers Unite branch is being held on Sunday, December 16th, with "hundreds" expected to join in the first few months.

This sounds like the Game Workers Unite group that existed already now has the backing of an actual union. 

IWGB has previously worked to support employees of companies infamous in the 'gig economy', such as Uber and Deliveroo.  

Our sister-site PCGamesInsider.biz has the full story.


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.