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Ubisoft workers organisation says firm has to be more concrete about workplace changes

Ubisoft workers organisation says firm has to be more concrete about workplace changes

The A Better Ubisoft (ABU) workers organisation has said that the French publishing giant isn't doing enough to fix problems with its working culture.

In a post on Twitter, the organisation said that Ubisoft's chief people officer Anika Grant had responded to each of its "key demands", but said that the firm needed to do more than promise to fix problems in the future. A Better Ubisoft said that there was still no concrete timeline for the "strategic roadmap of change for HR" or any real detail about what this would entail.

ABU also points to the promises that Activision Blizzard has already made in an effort to fix its working culture, including the end of forced arbitration and much more aggressive termination protocols against those found to be harassing or abusing their colleagues. This came in the wake of a lawsuit filed by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing in July detailing a toxic working culture. 

"You offer nothing more than your assurance that all investigations are impartial, all sanctions are appropriate and that victims and witness are protected, while offering us no evidence, involvement or oversight in any part of this process," ABU wrote.

"You suggest that you are giving us a seat at the table by re-launching our global employee satisfaction surveys, but a survey is not a seat at the table. You stress the need to listen to all employees, but unfortunately when the minority of workers come from under-represented backgrounds, their needs and concerns can become buried by people who are unlikely to face harassment, discrimination or abuse. We hope you agree that no abuse should be tolerated and those of us who are the victims, reporters and witnesses should be listened to with respect and never dismissed as a minority concern."

Accusations of harassment, abuse and misconduct were levelled against many members of Ubisoft staff in the summer of 2020. Since, the company has tried to show it is fixing the problem but almost 18 months after the fact, workers still say that it is still mishandling misconduct on its watch. CEO Yves Guillemot has admitted that Ubisoft still has a lot of work to do to rebuild trust with its employees.

PCGamesInsider.biz has reached out to Ubisoft for comment.


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.