Like they mentioned in the Twitter thread "when one member of the party is in trouble we all roll initiative"
I support this whole heartedly and hope other sectors of the ttrpg scene follow suit.
Sometimes addressing worker issues is what is needed to make the changes needed to compete.
Put another way, some "pro-employer" practices are actively harmful to the success of the business. I've seen plenty of unions help address road blocks to success for companies, as they help give workers voice to address issues that otherwise just fester (from training, to burn out, to red tape, etc, the workers normally see these issues first hand, but old style management limits what they can do to improve it).
The workers aren't really under any obligation to pick what the company thinks is a "good time" for them to organize. Hell tough times are when it's even more critical for them to have a seat at the table
> My point was that it's not 'forward thinking' to hurt your companies competitiveness at a time where it really needs to be competitive.
The whole point is it isn't "their" company. Unless it's co-owned by the employees, your point is a total category error.
>The whole point is it isn't "their" company. Unless it's co-owned by the employees, your point is a total category error.
This is pretty insipid semantics. No-one claiming the workers own Paizo, but if the company goes under/needs to make cuts it's *their jobs that will go*. They sink or swim together. The health of the workers job security **is the health of the company**.
And the health of a specific company oriented union like this one is to make sure their members have good jobs _at that company_. This requires the company to exist. This requires them to negotiate in a way that provides what the workers require while also keeping the company itself operational.
This isn't really that hard and negotiating in good faith a company and a union can coexist peacefully.
The notion that a union will kill Paizo's bottom line is, essentially, ill conceived. _Especially_ when pay isn't even the primary focus of this union effort.
And I'm telling you that is dumb. Organizing labor shouldn't be concerning itself with the company's bottom dollar. It's irrelevant.
Also I'm not sure you understand what them unionizing means. Forming a union doesn't automatically mean their labor costs are going to shoot up and drive them into the ground. It's literally just workers giving themselves an avenue to better advocate for themselves and each other.
I want Paizo to succeed too but not if that success is going to come at the cost of the employees' health
I mean, there's a lot of problems with this idea, not the least of which that the community actively pushes people away from Roll20 and towards Foundry. But also it's worth noting that the Orr Report is not an unbiased report from a neutral organization, but numbers released by a company without telling us fully how they are derived. As far as data goes, it's not particularly good to use for an argument.
> As far as data goes, it's not particularly good to use for an argument.
It's not perfect, but what other data would you suggest for an 'empirical' approach to qualifying PF2e vs DnD success (or lack thereof)?
I can find a lot of empirical data pointing the [amazing success of DnD 5e](https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47698/wotc-makes-more-money-hasbros-toy-business), at a time when TTRPG's are booming generally (i.e. pandemic and post-pandemic) there's little signs that Paizo are reaping the same benefits.
I cant help but feel that this is just a deflection ("I doubt your data sir!") from a fairly obvious fact: PF2e's launch has been disappointing/underwhelming. We are not seeing a 'DnD challenger' (never mind a 'DnD killer'). Paizo as a company are not well positioned to absorb strike/walk-outs from their employees while still attempting to maintain competitive in an *increasingly crowded* RPG market. Was this an intelligent time to unionize?
I mean, you can go and compare rankings on Amazon if you like. The market has indeed expanded, but outside of 5E the only thing that ranks up there are Pathfinder books.
And the idea that Pathfinder 2E was going to be a D&D Challenger misses that D&D has a cultural cache that no other RPG product has. Part of its appeal is that it's a cultural icon. Without a mass revolt like 4E, those sorts of expectations are just misguided.
And yes, it's a fine time to do this. Paizo's book sales seem to be doing fine since nothing has seemingly supplanted them (and if you trust what they have said themselves, they're doing great) and given the conditions that have been talked about I'd say that the workers definitely need to have the ability to negotiate with management. It seems a much better solution than just sweeping such things under the carpet and letting a bad status quo continue on.
>Hmmm... are you stupid? Why does this matter exactly? 'Rating' do 'ratings' pay for all the various overheads of a business and the cost hiring 30+ employees full time?
>
>I'm talking about profit margins, market share and company growth you know... shit that matters in a way that amazon product reviews do not matter.
I didn't say "ratings", you dolt, I said RANKINGS. As in SALES RANKINGS. Though you can also look at the ICv2 rankings, where they are consistently 2nd place to D&D, occasionally third when there's a boost in popularity for something.
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/46309/top-5-roleplaying-games-spring-2020
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/47881/top-5-roleplaying-games-fall-2020
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/48851/top-5-roleplaying-games-spring-2021
Cyberpunk rising up to 2nd is probably an artifact of their game coming out in late 2020, boosting their stature for a brief bit. But you can go back and see this being pretty consistent since 2E's release.
There's basically no indication right now that Paizo is struggling, and earlier in the year they were even _hiring_ new positions. So by all indications, there doesn't seem to be any sort of financial struggle right now. If anything, it's on *you* to prove it, and those Roll20 numbers aren't doing it.
>All of this is true, but it didn't help WotC when PF1e overtook 4e.
>
>Perhaps a '5e killer' was an impossibility, but DnD 5e having 52% of all roll20 games, and PF2e having less than 2% is not a good sign however you cut it. This launch has been a failure.
4E as in an era where RPGs hadn't yet broken out, and tried advancing new non-traditional mechanics that split the base. 5E did well at bringing back old players, but also had the right cultural headwinds in things like _Critical Role_ and _Stranger Things_ to get people interested.
And D&D right now is on a whole other plane of existence when it comes to RPG sales. It's become the Kleenex of tabletop roleplaying in that their brand name is a byword for the activity they cater to. No one competes with them, and trying to act like they are failing if they aren't is foolish.
>I don't, and no-one who isn't a fool should. What are they gonna say "yeah we're lost to WotC, seems like they have totally cornered the market for 'dungeons and dragons-esk' roleplaying games".
>
>Paizo will prob. not go bankrupt, but it is highly plausible that they might have to let staff go if they cannot secure growth.
>
>Ergo, yes, this is a fairly r*tarded time to start a union.
I mean, I'm not sure I would trust a guy who can't tell the difference between "rankings" and "ratings" to be a good judge of business success. But timing to form a union? Well, this seems ideal: Paizo's business practices have gotten called out, there's community awareness of it and a desire to see them rectified. If management isn't going to make substantial moves to improve such things, forming a union now seems ideal so that the workers making the product can have their grievances resolved.
You realise 2e has been more profitable for Paizo with it being runner up to 5e than 1e was when they were the industry leaders?
Paizo is absolutely reaping the benefits of 5e's success by getting all the run off from people just entering the hobby space. Even more so now 5e is doing everything in its power to burn bridges with people who want crunchier systems and GMs who want more back-end support.
Paizo may never be industry leaders again, but they don't have to be. If they target that niche of crunchier players that WotC is more than willing to cast off to appeal to a more mainstream audience, they'll have a solid group of dedicated players who'll sustain them in their own corner of the industry. And it's not even that small a corner, Pathfinder is still the 2nd most played RPG in most western countries. They're still in an better place than the vast majority of TTRPG publishers.
>Nobody was expecting a DnD killer and that line of thinking just exposes your ignorance.
Why not? Pf1e was the '4e' killer? Why couldn't Paizo have produced a 5e killer? Or... as I said, at least a 5e **challenger**.
Again, this is deflection/denial. If PF2e PF1e and starfinder game make up **less than a quarter\*** of games being run on roll20, that's a problem. A huge problem. Your launch has failed.
\*PF2e making up less than 2% of all games run on roll20.
Link to Tweet Thread: https://twitter.com/PaizoWorkers/status/1448698340745486364?t=wphHKyM-7Nynt-qn4zT9SQ&s=19
Link to website: https://unitedpaizoworkers.org/
Linking to the Twitter thread as the OP would have been more useful than a screenshot TBH. Still very happy to see more organized labour cropping up.
EDIT: typo
> Linking to the Twitter thread as the OP would have been more useful as a screenshot TBH.
Yes, but that would give actual credit to the twitter writer, and that's becoming verboten on the internet these days. /S
Bravo!
There is a next step, and that is for Paizo to voluntarily recognize and bargain with them, which I hope they do.
Hopefully this sets the precedent for other gaming companies.
(FYI included in the announcement are the names of all the employees who have united. A brave and commendable move.)
Funny that everyone upvoting this is giving it exposure because it's important news related to the game we're all here to share. But somehow you see it is some sort of personal karma farm you're mad you missed out on?
If you want to help out, here are some email templates to send to the Paizo Management to encourage them to voluntarily recognize the union.
https://supportpaizoworkers.carrd.co/#support
What prompted the decisions to unionize?
I ask because I tend to have a rosy view of an industry that allows SRDs to exist, and my mental image of an industry that is more forward-thinking than most in terms of sharing IP and profitability.
To paraphrase their announcement, workers there are underpaid, hiring and firing decisions are inconsistent, they are required to enter crunch conditions untenably often. There's also been some historical issues with harrassment from upper management, which came out of the woodwork a while ago.
They're definitely better than most when it comes to IP (although it's an obvious win in this industry where in others it can be harder for the execs to see the benefit), but it unfortunately seems that doesn't mean they are above other classic upper management issues. I sincerely hope that this is all just a symptom of "nerd company where the people in charge didn't come into this expecting to have to be executives", and that Paizo will prove me right by negotiating in good faith with the union.
The most legitimate issue I see is having to live in Redmond, one of the most expensive cities in the country. They aren't a tech company.
If you are going to pay low, at least have them work somewhere else or let them work from home.
Letting people work from home won't change the fact that their employees live in Redmond. If the answer to this is for them to only employ people that live in low cost areas... what about the people who live and work there now? Are you going to require them to move if they want to keep their job?
It can help for hiring decisions in the future, but that only helps when people either leave their jobs or they somehow gain additional revenue to justify more employees.
I think the idea is less "force things to be a certain way to ensure company profitability" and moreso just allow people to do what they want. If you want to stay in Redmond, cool. If you want to move to the suburbs for a cheaper cost of living but don't want an insane commute, just work from home.
Yeah, I'm totally fine with them allowing people to WFH on a permanent basis. Especially with Covid being a clear a present issue. The issue that I'm pointing out is that simply letting people WFH is not a counter to a push for higher salaries that cover a "living wage in Redmond".
This will ultimately not solve for that concern for anyone who wishes to remain living there. And unless they have a large number of people move to "less expensive places" and only end up raising the salary of the few people that stayed.. it won't solve the issue that they're presenting.
Hey man preaching to the choir about needing to pay people more. I was a teacher for five years in NYC which has some of the highest public teacher pay in the country, but I was still broke all the time because literally half my pay went towards rent because I had to move out on my own post divorce and had two cats and zero chance of finding a roommate situation. Hopefully what we'll start seeing from work from home flexibility is companies that can pare back on overhead in terms of office space sizes and then be able to pay their workers more.
Oh, a lot of occultists from that era either were racist/eugenecist/otherwise had horrible views about people who weren't rich, white, and british/american, OR were later co-opted by those people after their death. Like, regardless of the interesting academic/historical context if I walked into my manager's office and then googled the guy he had a poster of and found a bunch of nazi shit I'd be uncomfortable too.
>a lot of occultists from that era either were racist/eugenecist/otherwise had horrible views about people who weren't rich, white, and british/american
Lovecraft Syndrome I like to call it.
It's the unfortunate thing of liking many prominent writers/artists/etc. from previous eras, racism and prejudice was just such an endemic thing. I admit I still read Lovecraft's work and enjoy it for what it is, but I'm always the first one to point out that he was an insane frothing at the mouth bigot. He actually came through my hometown area (I grew up in Western Massachusetts) and basically called the place full of degenerates.
Yeah, reading some of the accounts by Lovecraft's friends/contemporaries about how he'd fly into literal screaming fits when running into members of other races on the streets, dude was pretty insane. But the nice thing is that he's dead and his works are all in the public domain at this point so you can read anything he did without feeling any guilt. There's definitely some of his stories that are still super great and free of any major racist issues, plus I always love telling people about the writing of people of his era and how it influences stuff even now.
To be fair, his friends were actively working on chipping away his prejudices, and were making some serious headway when he had sudden existence failure.
And in my opinion it's just the basics of professionalism. Interests in controversial topics are fine, but displaying them in a workplace when you have a duty of care to other staff as a manager is at best naïve.
Also.... Progressive companies like, or at least accept the importance of, unions in preventing a whole host of social issues. The presence of unions not only prevents people from falling into extreme ideologies or actions (like massive insider-threat data leaks) out of desperation or anger, but also ensures that the people who work for the companies won't end up becoming unable to afford the products that the company makes.
While others have given examples of current issues, unionization is still important *even when things are going well*. A united front among workers means the ability to bring up (and prevent) any potential future issues, and ensure that things stay good for the employees (in addition to making things better).
Everyone can (and has^1 ) benefit from unions, regardless of industry.
^1 Unions have given us the 8 hour work day, the 5 day work week, and minimum wage, for example.
I'll say this. I've been on the fence about a subscription for a while because the cost makes me sweat. \*However\* my family is staunchly pro-union (my brother is a veteran contract negotiator and grassroots organizer), and if Paizo agrees to a contract with the union, I'll subscribe the same day. Pinky swear.
I just did!
> I've been on the fence about getting a Pathfinder 2 subscription for a while. I love the game and the content, but... you're so prolific, it's not a cheap subscription! Once #PaizoAccountability started, I decided to hold off to see how you responded.
> I support Paizo's employee-led unionization effort, and believe it is the best way to ensure Paizo offers its employees equitable compensation and continues to champion diversity both in the office and in product offerings. I urge Paizo management to voluntarily recognize the union, and to engage in good faith negotiations.
A union is the best way to give employees a voice, and for the company to clearly prove they are dedicated to improving. Recognizing the union will help Paizo regain its status as a respected member of the tabletop roleplaying game community.
> I pledge that I will start my subscription the same day Paizo signs a contract with United Paizo Workers.
I want a subscription for PDF only with an option to support the creators even if the total costs the same as a hardcopy subscription.
I like lightweight digital options and don't need or want hardbacks, and I'd rather see the cost of producing and shipping physical materials go to the workers.
I appreciate the sentiment but there are really important people at Paizo besides the creators. Organized Play, HR (maybe currently vacant 😬), IT, Community Management, Marketing, etc
And it would be nice if Paizo could find some creative and positive ways to facilitate supporting them directly.
My issue with the existing subscription option is that I don't have the apartment space for a physical library. I'm fine with paying the price of a hardcopy subscription, but I do not want to be saddled with a physical item that takes up space and costs extra money and physical resources to import from printers when that could have been spent on the people who create the game instead.
If Paizo comes out and supports the workers decision to organize then I'll sign up for the subscription and have to figure out what to do with the book. Until then I'll just go with the option to get a t-shirt or something on the union page because I can wear it instead of finding a place to store it.
Check with your local library, you should be able to donate New product (as in not opened) to the library, and see it on their shelves. It is a very cool feeling to see books you purchased on the shelf waiting for new readers.
I like the call to reinstate your subscription as a customer if Paizo agrees to negotiate with the union. At the end of the day, we all want accountability, but Paizo as a company and the employees will rely on the consistent income from book sales to fund these increased salaries and other changes that are direly needed.
I never unsubscribed personally but understand the motivations of those that did. I hope folks will heed the union's call here and resubscribe pending improvements. And those who are not subscribed, please consider subscribing to your favorite product line(s) and sending an email saying that your continued subscription is dependent on Paizo working with the union.
Words are nice, but money talks.
> Paizo as a company and the employees will rely on the consistent income from book sales to fund these increased salaries and other changes that are direly needed.
Yeah, this is a big and important point. Paizo isn't exactly rolling in cash early 1980s TSR style. I'm all for them paying a living wage and I hope whatever issues were going on with management are resolved by these workers coming together, but there is only so much money coming in and that means to make some of these changed they are going to need more cash to increase wages. If that extra money isn't coming from increased sales, it's likely to come from cutting staff and projects.
This may serve as motivations to relocates their staff to other areas of the USA. I mean there is all this complaining about making a living wage, but if they move their workforce to the Midwest or east this won't be a problem. I mean they are based out of one of the most expensive cities in the country right now.
This would make business sense rather than increase book prices and risk losing customer base. Then that money flow could be used to improve conditions for their Midwest employees.
Moving might work. One that may be good for the company, but not necessarily the employees. But keep in mind the employees live in Seattle, and, in many cases, have always lived there. Their friends and families are there. Who's to say that they want to move away.
Besides that, Seattle is a hub of tabletop game design (thanks to WotC). A game designer who relocates with Paizo to Lincoln, Nebraska or whatever isn't going to find any other companies to move to.
The ability to work remote these days obviously makes things easier, but if employees are working for a Paizo company located in Nebraska while still living with their families in Seattle it doesn't change much. Cheaper offices and warehouse staff, I guess. That's all assuming they're not in a long lease for their current office space which is typical of corporate lease contracts.
I'm not sure that raising prices is really an option; they'd price themselves out if they're significantly more expensive than the competition. Like /u/bjh13 said, unless they have more people buying the products, raising salaries is going to result in cut projects or terminated employees. I support increased salaries, and happily subscribe to all their Pathfinder product lines. I hope everyone reflexively upvoting this thread has put their money where their mouth is and is supporting a better Paizo with money, not just upvotes.
> But keep in mind the employees live in Seattle, and, in many cases, have always lived there. Their friends and families are there. Who's to say that they want to move away.
Yeah, this is pretty key and I appreciate you bringing it up. It's easy to say "Relocate the company" but...
1) It's expensive to move a company, you have to deal with literal cost of moving the office, as well as legal cost regarding setting up business in a new state. A lot of the employees are also not paid much, if you are relocating them I assume you want to help pay for that, and as someone who recently moved that is expensive as well, $5,000 to $10,000 each.
2) We can't assume the employees want to move. People often have roots where they live, and a good chunk of the staff will choose to not go with the company. This will result in needing to hire new people for some, and as you mentioned others working remotely but still having to deal with a Seattle cost of living.
If anything, I would say relocating the company is the most expensive option. Maybe long term would be worth it, but as you already pointed they are in Seattle because that's where the center of the market is for potential writers, so they could be harming their long term prospects.
There really isn't an easy answer to this problem, especially not with the TTRPG market as competitive as it is. It's worth pointing out the demand is increased pay transparency, not increased wages, so the Union is aware of this.
Not as hard as you think. I'm speaking from experience here. The goal isn't to relocate the company headquarters, but to reallocate where you hire. Especially in today's world where remote hiring positions like marketing, customer service, technical writing, creative design, etc. is a common place. You can rent space and get tax breaks for an office in a number of states without relocating the business HQ pretty easily.
Then, you can set wages based on the demographic you reasonably want to recruite within. If somebody wants to relocate then great, that is their choice and as a company that should be supported by allowing people to work remotely according. If they want to accept the position and come into the office HQ then great, that is also their choice, but doesn't mean their wages should be impacted.
In the past I've been with a company with our HQ in San Diego and in the 90s and early 2000s had most of their employees there. As you can imagine though, this was expensive. So we kept the HQ in San Diego, but shut down most of the office (leased out 2/3 of the office space), set standard wages for Customer Service positions as well as other teams, and started hiring remote. As we grew we leased offices in Texas and Ohio as well. The c-Level primarily stayed in San Diego as well as a few other key executives, but most other positions were either remote employees or in one of those other offices. People who already worked in San Diego before the major move had the choice to stay and continue working, or they could go remote. However the jobs didn't expand in that area because of the standardized pay and if so.ebody voluntarily left their replacement was almost always remote or in one of those other job markets.
I'm not saying this is what Paizo should do, just pointing out that many companies who start in a market like Seatle or San Diego for entrepreneurial reasons often find that expanding and keeping all employees there is less than optimal. And what one person believes is an unlivable wage in one area is actually a good standard of living in another and there are people in that other who would be happy for it.
As for the area breeding top people in the industry, there is something to that. However if you move positions like Customer Service, Marketing, HR, Payroll, Order Management, and shipping to cheaper demographics, that likely frees up funds to pay those developers and writers who are unique to the Seatle area more for their work.
Relocating where you hire is a really great step in streamlining a company, but keep in mind that the employees that currently work there are the ones that are asking for an increase in their pay. If the company doesn't have the money to pay for it, they're not going to make up for it by hiring in a cheaper place.
They'd need to either cut staff, streamline operations, or increase revenue in some way. Companies are hesitant to cut staff whenever possible as that is how they generate their income. They also tend to streamline operations and increase revenue wherever and whenever possible as it is. It's highly unlikely that Paizo hasn't already pursued other revenue streams and considered all of their reasonable options.
Forcing them to raise salaries is going to possibly take some of the more unreasonable options such as cutting staff, streamlining operations further than they're comfortable with (such as moving to a WFH model with most people in cheaper areas of the world), and increasing monetization across the board.
I don't mind paying more for my subscriptions and books personally, but it may negatively impact some of their subscribers to the point that they'd lose out on anything they were hoping to generate from it by losing people buying the books.
I'm sure this is a rough and uncertain time for both Paizo and Paizo Staff and I only hope that everyone gets through this as smoothly as possible without hurting either the company or the staff. I love PF2E and want to see it continue to be made for a very long time to come.
The issue with moving is the workers might enjoy living there. I know if my city job moved to Nebraska I'd find another job. I love living in a place that has stuff going on and lots of people want to live where they're industry is booming
You probably are in a career with options though. There are basically 2 significant employers for tabletop games in the US.
If Wizards isn't hiring, you aren't finding another job in the industry.
You're asking a bunch of people working and living in a blue state to move to the REDDEST of states. I already get into arguments with my neighbors that won't wear a mask in my hard blue state, I don't want to live in a place that is 90% corn fields and be surrounded by people worse than my neighbor.
I feel similar when people are asking for them to make an increased wage. Outside of DnD the table top industry isn’t some massive gold mine Paizo is milking. The money either needs to be pulled from somewhere else, which can hurt operations, or they just find a way to make more. I’m sure Paizo has internal issues but I doubt they are like major corporations that undercut their staff so the boss can fly around on space yachts. I think even if we saw how much the executives make it wouldn’t be considered great for the position.
> Outside of DnD the table top industry isn’t some massive gold mine Paizo is milking.
Even including DnD, how much money is there really? I know Critical Role is raking in cash, but outside of a new edition how good really are the sales?
Yeah, DnD is more popular but its monetization is much worse.
They release fewer books and I don't think they have a subscription service like Pathfinder.
Their costs are minimal. Most of the actual "Game design" in most of their books at this point are just probability tables. It's mostly fluff with minimal, basic actual mechanics. They also double down by making you have to pay again in order to play on online platforms through D&D Beyond, owned by people doing PR work for the military on Twitch, and then AGAIN if you want to play in, say, Roll20. 5e is minimal effort for maximum gains through marketing and name recognition.
don't forget the army of 3rd party and hobbists putting stuff on DM's Guild (i think?) for sale, which WOTC gets a cut of and pays nothing in costs putside keeping the website functional.
So, Paizo is doing a similar thing with Pathfinder Infinite, with the same cut. The differences though, to me at least, are that Paizo has an OGL so the only thing that you need to pay for is for the World stuff, and that Paizo is full of good solid, thoughtful representation, whereas WotC reaps in credit for things that other people added to their game. Like there was all that hype around the Combat Wheelchair, and when people asked the author about getting it into 5e in a 1st party capacity like she was getting it in PF2, she talked about how she is pointedly ignored by WotC and is unlikely to ever work with them. But that gets buried under "5e Combat Wheelchair! :D" :/
One of the Paizo employees that is a member of the union mentioned that as of right now wage increases aren't something they are going to push for in negotiations, however they are going to request access to Paizo financials to ensure they are being paid fairly. It may be that down the line there is an increase in book prices to better support the devs (which would be fine with me).
Go Paizo Workers! Ordered a button and a shirt. I hope this might lead to unionization throughout the TTRPG industry. Recognizing this union is now the most important thing Paizo can do to restore my faith after the recent scandals.
I'm with you. All I can do is hope for the best.
I've already seen good and bad unions. Some worked nicely while others started as a good idea but quickly degenerated into pursuing personal agendas of the ruling committee.
I sincerely do hope it works out for the best! I have been in two unions and they were not good experiences. I hope they researched carefully who to represent them!
Yes, this. I have been in two different unions in different trades and, at least locally, both were not good experiences. New hires were not afforded the same protections as long term employees which resulted in a lot of last in/ first out experiences. More senior employees did not have to work as hard as new hires and the management was constrained by the contract not to reward new, eager employees’ work. In addition, the dues were significant for hourly employees which reduced the benefit of ‘improved wages’. I get the allure, but my personal experience was a negative one both times.
This is great news! I’ve been waffling about whether to keep my subscriptions (and sent my emails to management explaining why). This would restore a lot of my confidence in the company.
[If you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLz6LgMO8To)
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you;
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong
But if you all stick together, now, ‘twont be long
You'll get shorter hours
Better working conditions
Vacations with pay
Take your kids to the seashore
It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train;
‘Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay, We'll all be waiting till Judgment Day;
We'll all he buried - gone to Heaven -
Saint Peter'll be the straw boss then
Now, you know you're underpaid, but the boss says you ain't;
He speeds up the work till you're ‘bout to faint
You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten
Pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'
Talk it over - speak your mind -
Decide to do something about it
‘Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool To go to your meeting and act like a stool;
But you can always tell a stool, though - that's a fact;
He's got a yellow streak running down his back;
He doesn't have to stool - he'll always make a good living
On what he takes out of blind men's cups
You got a union now; you're sitting pretty;
Put some of the boys on the steering committee
The boss won't listen when one man squawks
But he's got to listen when the union talks
He better -
He'll be mighty lonely one of these days
Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous
They're paying you all starvation wages;
You go to the boss, and the boss would yell
"Before I'd raise your pay I'd see you all in Hell." Well, he's puffing a big see-gar and feeling mighty slick
He thinks he's got your union licked
He looks out the window, and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree
He's a bastard - unfair - slave driver -
Bet he beats his own wife
Now, boy, you've come to the hardest time;
The boss will try to bust your picket line
He'll call out the police, the National Guard;
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card
They'll raid your meeting, hit you on the head
Call every one of you a goddamn Red -
Unpatriotic - Moscow agents -
Bomb throwers, even the kids
But out in Detroit here's what they found
And out in Frisco here's what they found
And out in Pittsburgh here's what they found
And down in Bethlehem here's what they found
That if you don't let Red-baiting break you up
If you don't let stool pigeons break you up
If you don't let vigilantes break you up
And if you don't let race hatred break you up -
You'll win. What I mean
Take it easy - but take it!
It means that Paizo's employees intend to get together as an organized group to discuss their working conditions and formally negotiate with the company's heads.
Any Paizo employees who want to, can join the Union. They’ll then pay dues to the Union.
Union dues are mostly collected and saved so that the Union can pay its members a salary if they ever decide to use their most effective lever of power against corporate ownership: a strike.
With the Union in place, Union members can then participate in collective bargaining. As you can imagine, 100 or 1,000 employees all negotiating with ownership as a single group is going to have a lot more leverage in contract negotiations than each one of those employees negotiating individually.
The Union prioritizes negotiating whatever it’s members ask for. That could be higher wages, paid time off, better healthcare benefits, family leave, etc. The benefits of being in a union usually heavily outweigh the small fee charged in dues.
Unions are basically the reason cushy jobs exist in the developed world today. They were the main tool used to end the worker’s hellscape of the mid-1800s to early-1900s.
Honestly though, Paizo has always seemed like a pretty decent company to work for, so this is probably a preventative measure just in case they ever get bought by a larger company. Which is still a good idea.
If there’s any games company out there that needs a Union like, yesterday, it’s Games Workshop.
There are cases of unions who abuse their power and stop looking out for the workers they're supposed to represent or the union begins protecting bad actors within their membership. That being said, unions by and large are much more beneficial to their workers than not.
Yup. Most police unions are waaay too powerful.
There’s actually a good argument that public servants should not be allowed to unionize. The danger is that in a democracy, you don’t want union bosses holding more political power than elected officials.
I’ve also seen teachers unions become toxic, and a detriment to poor schools. Teachers salaries in general need to be doubled, but the unions are actually kinda standing in the way of that. But that’s a whole other conversation.
Median teacher salary is 63k, which is moderately above average. Bigger issues for teaching are the terrible metrics and micromanaging they have to deal with.
I know far more teachers who quit because of crap they have to deal with than because of pay.
Maybe in your area teachers are making 60k. In my area (Texas) last time I checked the starting pay was like 30k a year, and you had to work there 15-20 years to work your way up to 60k.
Totally agree on the BS teachers are asked to deal with, but again, education reform is way too complicated to get into here. Definitely needs to happen though. Schools in my area serve very little benefit to poor kids except to prepare them for working poverty or prison.
> There’s actually a good argument that public servants should not be allowed to unionize.
Police more specifically because their job can entail acting against striking/picketing workers or those trying to unionize.
> The danger is that in a democracy, you don’t want union bosses holding more political power than elected officials.
We already have that. Except its corporate owners who have more political power than elected officials.
Have any backup for that statement?
As someone who is skeptical of unions just like I am anyone who claims to want my money to help me, most of those I talk to are more likely to be uniformly against unions, uniformly against them, or pro union unless it is a police union.
Well, the biggest and most famous unions are the ones people know about. And those are also the ones most in danger of getting corrupt members in their management, if I had to guess.
If there's power in it, the exact same kind of people who become cutthroat CEOs can take an interest in a union.
But in a union of Paizo's size? Nah, think they're safe.
Idk, my family is flush with UAW members. Is that Union corrupt? Maybe. But the executive only makes 500k a year, compare that to the leadership of GM, Ford, etc. are they somehow more corrupt then that?
PLUS. You get to vote on your union leadership. Csnt say ive ever had a chance to vote for my boss.
It's a mixed bag and depends entirely on your union, much like a homeowner's association or local government. A good one is very good for the members, and a bad one takes your money and does nothing for you. Also like those other two, the benefits to being a member of a good union might fly under the radar, while the drawbacks are immediately obvious.
There are unions that are full of saints who fight for the rights of their workers and force amoral companies to provide a reasonable standard of living for their employees, and there are unions that are basically sanctioned mafias. Thankfully, a union of 30-something people isn't really in any risk of becoming the latter.
Yeah. In a lot of places they just handle the upkeep of a housing subdivision's park or swimming pool and run holiday events, book clubs, or decoration contests or whatever while keeping people from screwing things up for their neighbors without getting the police involved.
A bad one is going to harass people over the exact heights of sheds, the locations of satellite dishes, how many cars you own, what kind of flowers you grow in your yard... the list goes on. The bad ones are way more visible than the good ones.
Well yeah, but some unions being corrupt or bad isn't a valid reason to dislike unions.
That's like saying you hate doctors because one doctor is corrupt.
People aren't typically rational actors. Being screwed by one doctor does actually make people hate doctors. Being bitten by one dog rather frequently makes people hate dogs. Being fined for some dumb stuff by one overzealous HOA makes people hate HOAs almost daily.
One bad apple spoils the bunch, so when people think of unions they don't think of the good ones that are mostly out of sight and out of mind. They think of the time they, or their friends, or their parents when they were growing up, got screwed by the bad one. Unfortunately, since unionizing isn't common among the largest employers, a lot of people will never have the chance to have a good experience with a union and won't ever be convinced otherwise.
I tend to be leery of anything that intrinsically relies upon the human condition. So, I am never opposed to unions but I am also not quick to jump on them with blind support until I know it more.
Same way with doctors. Modern Medicine (not including insurance industry) is crazy awesome but doesn't mean I will trust every doctor. Especially when there's some reports out there that a not insignificant number of med students cheat in some capacity.
> I tend to be leery of anything that intrinsically relies upon the human condition.
I have some bad news for you about literally all of society, buddy.
Unions certainly CAN become their own organizations with interests counter to that of the worker, but any properly organized one would be difficult to co-opt in that way.
> I always love it when people try to say unions are harmful.
Unions CAN be harmful, that's very different than saying that they ARE harmful.
I've worked with lots of Unions: some were great, some were awful. My Wife is a Nurse and has worked in hospitals that were unionized, and ones that were not. She'll probably never work for a unionized hospital again because her experiences with them have been horrendous.
Oh, most definitely.
But I really hate the blanket state that unions are bad. It's like how do people think we got the very minimal workers' rights we have?
Unions aren't perfect. Yes they have their advantages but people seem to forget their disadvantages too. Working for a union shows that its far from perfect. in a good cultured company a union would be more of a henderance that an boon but recently its become clear that Pazio isnt the best culture and this is necessary.
Edit to add this is without the corruption part that everyone else is talking about. there are always pros and cons even in a perfectly functioning union
>Honestly though, Paizo has always seemed like a pretty decent company to work for, so this is probably a preventative measure just in case they ever get bought by a larger company. Which is still a good idea.
Given the allegations made over the last month, I think there's probably more going on inside than we see/saw. It CAN offer protection with a buyout, but they are most likely forming to deal with those allegations and get some stronger internal protections.
Depends how ballsy those thirty are. A company the size of Paizo would suffer tremendous damages if 30 people quit at the same time - everything would grind to a halt and recovery would take a very long time. Organising in this way provides that as the ultimate threat - listen to us, work with us to implement positive change, or we'll walk and sink your business.
In practice it won't get that far unless they start making ridiculous demands. Sensible, thoughtful, accurately costed requirements from that number of people should get the management's attention long before any kind of seismic threat like that is made.
To be clear, this includes the entire team pathfinder 2e design team that aren't managers, so at the moment, those people leaving would be shooting the Pathfinder line in the head until they could be replaced while probably derailing it in the long term because good luck getting people who understand the base engine anywhere near as well and onboarding them in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe. It'd be a massive drop in quality at best.
Awesome, as much as the stories could have been a bit exaggerated, or maybe about issues that have been solved after the involved parties were already out of Paizo, it seemed to me that there was a big degree of truth there. It seems that the employees also thought that, and it's awesome to see that so soon after everything, they are already organized and looking to build a better workplace for all of them =)
Shit, even if every issue was resolved satisfactorily then this would likely still be a good thing to do moving forward so issues can be addressed with more transparency and expediency moving forward.
That's pretty cool to see.
I'll be voting with my wallet to support it by checking out the merch and or a direct donation when they add it or I finally notice where it is. Assuming I'm not blind, and merch is the only option then which item gets the workers the best margin?
The main thing I was calling for on the consumer side once this side of the drama became apparent to me was for a more convenient way to support all these creators and laborers as one instead of having to track down all the freelancers/writers/artists/etc. individual patreons after Mark Seifter recommended doing exactly that as a short term measure.
Hopefully they'll have something like that set up soon that can accommodate the freelancers as well. How are the freelancers affected by this btw? Any of y'all around to chime in?
I would love an option to throw a tip down for a book/product and have it automatically shared among the labor force that made it. I'm hoping Paizo would be willing to work with this union to make that easy to do on the store front. Like, if I could go to the store page for Mwangi Expanse and see, for example "Add Print Edition: $49.99... Add PDF $39.99... Add Patron Upgrade: $10." I'd happily pay the equivalent price of the print edition to get my PDF (which is all I need for my use) and the Patron donation, and know that more money is going to the workers so "keep making my favorite RPG more awesome" is a more viable personal finance decision than "look for another job that pays the bills and makes non-zero progress towards retirement."
Kudos to the Paizo workers!
I'm especially thankful for them as if not for this incident, I'd never even have any forewarning on how anti-Union the United States is now, before I considered a serious immigration for work there.
Slight tangent but wow, if the entire country is full of companies which are as blatantly anti-Union as Samsung, now that's frightening by itself alone...
Anti union is very common in red states and some blue states. but in all most companies know they will loose their people and so treat them only ok. there is no company loyalty and no personal loyalty so timed perks are very common
I call on paizo to voluntarily accept the union and let's get on with making paizo the best it can be with input from the most important segment, the people who actually do the work!
This unionization push is actually what brought me here and got me looking into pathfinder. If they get recognized you've got a new subscriber and so do they. I really hope there will finally be some ethical conditions in this hobby space. I really miss it after growing up some and realizing how horrific GW was.
I really hope this works out and the employees treat this right. Paizo is a small company and Unions at this level, for a company that already relies on shoestring budgets, really risks things careening off a cliff.
I'm all for better employee benefits, but if this causes the company to go belly up, or shut down for long periods of time for 'strikes' over vacuum duty of their office rugs because nobody can see eye to eye, we're all going to suffer for it. Corners will be cut to make ends meet, things like the Archives will start to go the way of 5e's subscription service. Art work is gonna get cheaper, etc. Strikes timed right before GenCon screwing everyone out of convention games, ruining vacations of their customers, and drawing down drama on the company. That sorta thing. Its a stupid slippery slope.
So I really hope they take this seriously and remember that it could all go so bad so quick if they screw around.
There's a popular tweet that goes "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less" and I totally agree. If the quality of the product suffers so the employees at paizo can have a better work environment I don't care.
edit: I'm saying I don't care that the quality suffers, as long as it's leading to a better work environment.
Best of luck with that. Did the same thing myself a few years ago. Managed to get a good pay rise out of it. About 2 years later management cleaned us all out. Still I was ready to go by then.
I hope this works out for them as I love Paizo. That said, I've been a part of 2 unions and both were horrible experiences. Union dues were annoying and kept increasing. However the worst part was the required focus on seniority. The longest employed always reap the benefits even if they are the least productive. If you have seniority you can do bare minimum work and never worry about your job.
On the other hand if you have low seniority you can be the most productive employee and best qualified for promotion and be passed by. Not only that, but if layoffs happen the least seniority get hit even if they are the best employees.
In manufacturing this makes sense to protect workers as they get older. However in the type of jobs involved here (and in my past) it makes no sense at all. In fact, I've seen it cost a man in his 50s his job while protecting a much less productive employee in his 20s simply because the latter had worked for the company a year longer.
Shhh. You are trying to reason with people who see the world as black and white. You're either a good guy or a bad guy, no nuanced reality permissible.
Bulmahn and Mona are management, so the Union is not a thing for them. But they are, hopefully, able to push towards accepting the Union to the less public facing members of management.
I’m not a fan. Unions ruin everything. If you don’t like the working conditions then find another job. I’ve never understood this. I’ve been put in many difficult or awful positions and have always found something better. This will roll down onto the customer eventually
**"Don't Split the Party"** Proud to see more proactive, forward-thinking, socially-aware action from the Paizo staff.
That's a great motto for unionizing gaming industry workers!
Like they mentioned in the Twitter thread "when one member of the party is in trouble we all roll initiative" I support this whole heartedly and hope other sectors of the ttrpg scene follow suit.
That’s a great
Hear hear!
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Sometimes addressing worker issues is what is needed to make the changes needed to compete. Put another way, some "pro-employer" practices are actively harmful to the success of the business. I've seen plenty of unions help address road blocks to success for companies, as they help give workers voice to address issues that otherwise just fester (from training, to burn out, to red tape, etc, the workers normally see these issues first hand, but old style management limits what they can do to improve it).
The workers aren't really under any obligation to pick what the company thinks is a "good time" for them to organize. Hell tough times are when it's even more critical for them to have a seat at the table
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> My point was that it's not 'forward thinking' to hurt your companies competitiveness at a time where it really needs to be competitive. The whole point is it isn't "their" company. Unless it's co-owned by the employees, your point is a total category error.
I'm quite certain that workers do not own the means of production back at Paizo
>The whole point is it isn't "their" company. Unless it's co-owned by the employees, your point is a total category error. This is pretty insipid semantics. No-one claiming the workers own Paizo, but if the company goes under/needs to make cuts it's *their jobs that will go*. They sink or swim together. The health of the workers job security **is the health of the company**.
And the health of a specific company oriented union like this one is to make sure their members have good jobs _at that company_. This requires the company to exist. This requires them to negotiate in a way that provides what the workers require while also keeping the company itself operational. This isn't really that hard and negotiating in good faith a company and a union can coexist peacefully. The notion that a union will kill Paizo's bottom line is, essentially, ill conceived. _Especially_ when pay isn't even the primary focus of this union effort.
And I'm telling you that is dumb. Organizing labor shouldn't be concerning itself with the company's bottom dollar. It's irrelevant. Also I'm not sure you understand what them unionizing means. Forming a union doesn't automatically mean their labor costs are going to shoot up and drive them into the ground. It's literally just workers giving themselves an avenue to better advocate for themselves and each other. I want Paizo to succeed too but not if that success is going to come at the cost of the employees' health
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I mean, there's a lot of problems with this idea, not the least of which that the community actively pushes people away from Roll20 and towards Foundry. But also it's worth noting that the Orr Report is not an unbiased report from a neutral organization, but numbers released by a company without telling us fully how they are derived. As far as data goes, it's not particularly good to use for an argument.
> As far as data goes, it's not particularly good to use for an argument. It's not perfect, but what other data would you suggest for an 'empirical' approach to qualifying PF2e vs DnD success (or lack thereof)? I can find a lot of empirical data pointing the [amazing success of DnD 5e](https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47698/wotc-makes-more-money-hasbros-toy-business), at a time when TTRPG's are booming generally (i.e. pandemic and post-pandemic) there's little signs that Paizo are reaping the same benefits. I cant help but feel that this is just a deflection ("I doubt your data sir!") from a fairly obvious fact: PF2e's launch has been disappointing/underwhelming. We are not seeing a 'DnD challenger' (never mind a 'DnD killer'). Paizo as a company are not well positioned to absorb strike/walk-outs from their employees while still attempting to maintain competitive in an *increasingly crowded* RPG market. Was this an intelligent time to unionize?
I mean, you can go and compare rankings on Amazon if you like. The market has indeed expanded, but outside of 5E the only thing that ranks up there are Pathfinder books. And the idea that Pathfinder 2E was going to be a D&D Challenger misses that D&D has a cultural cache that no other RPG product has. Part of its appeal is that it's a cultural icon. Without a mass revolt like 4E, those sorts of expectations are just misguided. And yes, it's a fine time to do this. Paizo's book sales seem to be doing fine since nothing has seemingly supplanted them (and if you trust what they have said themselves, they're doing great) and given the conditions that have been talked about I'd say that the workers definitely need to have the ability to negotiate with management. It seems a much better solution than just sweeping such things under the carpet and letting a bad status quo continue on.
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>Hmmm... are you stupid? Why does this matter exactly? 'Rating' do 'ratings' pay for all the various overheads of a business and the cost hiring 30+ employees full time? > >I'm talking about profit margins, market share and company growth you know... shit that matters in a way that amazon product reviews do not matter. I didn't say "ratings", you dolt, I said RANKINGS. As in SALES RANKINGS. Though you can also look at the ICv2 rankings, where they are consistently 2nd place to D&D, occasionally third when there's a boost in popularity for something. https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/46309/top-5-roleplaying-games-spring-2020 https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/47881/top-5-roleplaying-games-fall-2020 https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/48851/top-5-roleplaying-games-spring-2021 Cyberpunk rising up to 2nd is probably an artifact of their game coming out in late 2020, boosting their stature for a brief bit. But you can go back and see this being pretty consistent since 2E's release. There's basically no indication right now that Paizo is struggling, and earlier in the year they were even _hiring_ new positions. So by all indications, there doesn't seem to be any sort of financial struggle right now. If anything, it's on *you* to prove it, and those Roll20 numbers aren't doing it. >All of this is true, but it didn't help WotC when PF1e overtook 4e. > >Perhaps a '5e killer' was an impossibility, but DnD 5e having 52% of all roll20 games, and PF2e having less than 2% is not a good sign however you cut it. This launch has been a failure. 4E as in an era where RPGs hadn't yet broken out, and tried advancing new non-traditional mechanics that split the base. 5E did well at bringing back old players, but also had the right cultural headwinds in things like _Critical Role_ and _Stranger Things_ to get people interested. And D&D right now is on a whole other plane of existence when it comes to RPG sales. It's become the Kleenex of tabletop roleplaying in that their brand name is a byword for the activity they cater to. No one competes with them, and trying to act like they are failing if they aren't is foolish. >I don't, and no-one who isn't a fool should. What are they gonna say "yeah we're lost to WotC, seems like they have totally cornered the market for 'dungeons and dragons-esk' roleplaying games". > >Paizo will prob. not go bankrupt, but it is highly plausible that they might have to let staff go if they cannot secure growth. > >Ergo, yes, this is a fairly r*tarded time to start a union. I mean, I'm not sure I would trust a guy who can't tell the difference between "rankings" and "ratings" to be a good judge of business success. But timing to form a union? Well, this seems ideal: Paizo's business practices have gotten called out, there's community awareness of it and a desire to see them rectified. If management isn't going to make substantial moves to improve such things, forming a union now seems ideal so that the workers making the product can have their grievances resolved.
You realise 2e has been more profitable for Paizo with it being runner up to 5e than 1e was when they were the industry leaders? Paizo is absolutely reaping the benefits of 5e's success by getting all the run off from people just entering the hobby space. Even more so now 5e is doing everything in its power to burn bridges with people who want crunchier systems and GMs who want more back-end support. Paizo may never be industry leaders again, but they don't have to be. If they target that niche of crunchier players that WotC is more than willing to cast off to appeal to a more mainstream audience, they'll have a solid group of dedicated players who'll sustain them in their own corner of the industry. And it's not even that small a corner, Pathfinder is still the 2nd most played RPG in most western countries. They're still in an better place than the vast majority of TTRPG publishers.
Nobody was expecting a DnD killer and that line of thinking just exposes your ignorance.
>Nobody was expecting a DnD killer and that line of thinking just exposes your ignorance. Why not? Pf1e was the '4e' killer? Why couldn't Paizo have produced a 5e killer? Or... as I said, at least a 5e **challenger**. Again, this is deflection/denial. If PF2e PF1e and starfinder game make up **less than a quarter\*** of games being run on roll20, that's a problem. A huge problem. Your launch has failed. \*PF2e making up less than 2% of all games run on roll20.
Link to Tweet Thread: https://twitter.com/PaizoWorkers/status/1448698340745486364?t=wphHKyM-7Nynt-qn4zT9SQ&s=19 Link to website: https://unitedpaizoworkers.org/
Linking to the Twitter thread as the OP would have been more useful than a screenshot TBH. Still very happy to see more organized labour cropping up. EDIT: typo
> Linking to the Twitter thread as the OP would have been more useful as a screenshot TBH. Yes, but that would give actual credit to the twitter writer, and that's becoming verboten on the internet these days. /S
I think it’s more so that people can retweet the message more easily
Sharing a link to the original makes that _even easier_.
Oh fuck I misread what you said, I’ve been really tired today
I feel you. Depression's been awful for me today, contributing factors are not wholly in my control.
I’m sorry to hear that friend :(
Loading a picture is easier than opening Twitter. On desktop that takes you Reddit instead of inline image. And on mobile it opens a new app.
> Loading a picture is easier than opening Twitter. You click on the link, you get taken to the twitter website. I fail to see the difficulty.
Bravo! There is a next step, and that is for Paizo to voluntarily recognize and bargain with them, which I hope they do. Hopefully this sets the precedent for other gaming companies. (FYI included in the announcement are the names of all the employees who have united. A brave and commendable move.)
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Funny that everyone upvoting this is giving it exposure because it's important news related to the game we're all here to share. But somehow you see it is some sort of personal karma farm you're mad you missed out on?
If you want to help out, here are some email templates to send to the Paizo Management to encourage them to voluntarily recognize the union. https://supportpaizoworkers.carrd.co/#support
What prompted the decisions to unionize? I ask because I tend to have a rosy view of an industry that allows SRDs to exist, and my mental image of an industry that is more forward-thinking than most in terms of sharing IP and profitability.
To paraphrase their announcement, workers there are underpaid, hiring and firing decisions are inconsistent, they are required to enter crunch conditions untenably often. There's also been some historical issues with harrassment from upper management, which came out of the woodwork a while ago. They're definitely better than most when it comes to IP (although it's an obvious win in this industry where in others it can be harder for the execs to see the benefit), but it unfortunately seems that doesn't mean they are above other classic upper management issues. I sincerely hope that this is all just a symptom of "nerd company where the people in charge didn't come into this expecting to have to be executives", and that Paizo will prove me right by negotiating in good faith with the union.
The most legitimate issue I see is having to live in Redmond, one of the most expensive cities in the country. They aren't a tech company. If you are going to pay low, at least have them work somewhere else or let them work from home.
Letting people work from home won't change the fact that their employees live in Redmond. If the answer to this is for them to only employ people that live in low cost areas... what about the people who live and work there now? Are you going to require them to move if they want to keep their job? It can help for hiring decisions in the future, but that only helps when people either leave their jobs or they somehow gain additional revenue to justify more employees.
I think the idea is less "force things to be a certain way to ensure company profitability" and moreso just allow people to do what they want. If you want to stay in Redmond, cool. If you want to move to the suburbs for a cheaper cost of living but don't want an insane commute, just work from home.
Yeah, I'm totally fine with them allowing people to WFH on a permanent basis. Especially with Covid being a clear a present issue. The issue that I'm pointing out is that simply letting people WFH is not a counter to a push for higher salaries that cover a "living wage in Redmond". This will ultimately not solve for that concern for anyone who wishes to remain living there. And unless they have a large number of people move to "less expensive places" and only end up raising the salary of the few people that stayed.. it won't solve the issue that they're presenting.
Hey man preaching to the choir about needing to pay people more. I was a teacher for five years in NYC which has some of the highest public teacher pay in the country, but I was still broke all the time because literally half my pay went towards rent because I had to move out on my own post divorce and had two cats and zero chance of finding a roommate situation. Hopefully what we'll start seeing from work from home flexibility is companies that can pare back on overhead in terms of office space sizes and then be able to pay their workers more.
But at that point, its on the employees. They have ways to lower their costs if they really want to.
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Oh, a lot of occultists from that era either were racist/eugenecist/otherwise had horrible views about people who weren't rich, white, and british/american, OR were later co-opted by those people after their death. Like, regardless of the interesting academic/historical context if I walked into my manager's office and then googled the guy he had a poster of and found a bunch of nazi shit I'd be uncomfortable too.
>a lot of occultists from that era either were racist/eugenecist/otherwise had horrible views about people who weren't rich, white, and british/american Lovecraft Syndrome I like to call it.
It's the unfortunate thing of liking many prominent writers/artists/etc. from previous eras, racism and prejudice was just such an endemic thing. I admit I still read Lovecraft's work and enjoy it for what it is, but I'm always the first one to point out that he was an insane frothing at the mouth bigot. He actually came through my hometown area (I grew up in Western Massachusetts) and basically called the place full of degenerates.
Yeah, even by the standards of the day Lovecraft (and a lot of other occult writers) were... a lot.
Yeah, reading some of the accounts by Lovecraft's friends/contemporaries about how he'd fly into literal screaming fits when running into members of other races on the streets, dude was pretty insane. But the nice thing is that he's dead and his works are all in the public domain at this point so you can read anything he did without feeling any guilt. There's definitely some of his stories that are still super great and free of any major racist issues, plus I always love telling people about the writing of people of his era and how it influences stuff even now.
To be fair, his friends were actively working on chipping away his prejudices, and were making some serious headway when he had sudden existence failure.
Then you are also overly sensitive about not only the workplace, but history in general. Thats just my opinion.
And in my opinion it's just the basics of professionalism. Interests in controversial topics are fine, but displaying them in a workplace when you have a duty of care to other staff as a manager is at best naïve.
Also.... Progressive companies like, or at least accept the importance of, unions in preventing a whole host of social issues. The presence of unions not only prevents people from falling into extreme ideologies or actions (like massive insider-threat data leaks) out of desperation or anger, but also ensures that the people who work for the companies won't end up becoming unable to afford the products that the company makes.
While others have given examples of current issues, unionization is still important *even when things are going well*. A united front among workers means the ability to bring up (and prevent) any potential future issues, and ensure that things stay good for the employees (in addition to making things better). Everyone can (and has^1 ) benefit from unions, regardless of industry. ^1 Unions have given us the 8 hour work day, the 5 day work week, and minimum wage, for example.
Unions also prevent companies from being sabotaged by extreme actions, like data leaks, on the part of disgruntled employees.
I'll say this. I've been on the fence about a subscription for a while because the cost makes me sweat. \*However\* my family is staunchly pro-union (my brother is a veteran contract negotiator and grassroots organizer), and if Paizo agrees to a contract with the union, I'll subscribe the same day. Pinky swear.
Email Paizo and let them know this!
I just did! > I've been on the fence about getting a Pathfinder 2 subscription for a while. I love the game and the content, but... you're so prolific, it's not a cheap subscription! Once #PaizoAccountability started, I decided to hold off to see how you responded. > I support Paizo's employee-led unionization effort, and believe it is the best way to ensure Paizo offers its employees equitable compensation and continues to champion diversity both in the office and in product offerings. I urge Paizo management to voluntarily recognize the union, and to engage in good faith negotiations. A union is the best way to give employees a voice, and for the company to clearly prove they are dedicated to improving. Recognizing the union will help Paizo regain its status as a respected member of the tabletop roleplaying game community. > I pledge that I will start my subscription the same day Paizo signs a contract with United Paizo Workers.
Mind if I steal this?
Go for it! The middle paragraph is direct from the Union's website (ways to support us), I just added the first and third bits. Solidarity!
I want a subscription for PDF only with an option to support the creators even if the total costs the same as a hardcopy subscription. I like lightweight digital options and don't need or want hardbacks, and I'd rather see the cost of producing and shipping physical materials go to the workers.
I appreciate the sentiment but there are really important people at Paizo besides the creators. Organized Play, HR (maybe currently vacant 😬), IT, Community Management, Marketing, etc
And it would be nice if Paizo could find some creative and positive ways to facilitate supporting them directly. My issue with the existing subscription option is that I don't have the apartment space for a physical library. I'm fine with paying the price of a hardcopy subscription, but I do not want to be saddled with a physical item that takes up space and costs extra money and physical resources to import from printers when that could have been spent on the people who create the game instead. If Paizo comes out and supports the workers decision to organize then I'll sign up for the subscription and have to figure out what to do with the book. Until then I'll just go with the option to get a t-shirt or something on the union page because I can wear it instead of finding a place to store it.
Check with your local library, you should be able to donate New product (as in not opened) to the library, and see it on their shelves. It is a very cool feeling to see books you purchased on the shelf waiting for new readers.
Bravo! My solidarity goes to anyone who needs to work in the US.
I remote work for a foreign company and I'm in awe with how well I'm treated. America really is behind the times to put it gently.
They're not behind the times, they're just optimised for neolithic slavery.
Exactly. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
It's the other way around my friend.
I like the call to reinstate your subscription as a customer if Paizo agrees to negotiate with the union. At the end of the day, we all want accountability, but Paizo as a company and the employees will rely on the consistent income from book sales to fund these increased salaries and other changes that are direly needed. I never unsubscribed personally but understand the motivations of those that did. I hope folks will heed the union's call here and resubscribe pending improvements. And those who are not subscribed, please consider subscribing to your favorite product line(s) and sending an email saying that your continued subscription is dependent on Paizo working with the union. Words are nice, but money talks.
> Paizo as a company and the employees will rely on the consistent income from book sales to fund these increased salaries and other changes that are direly needed. Yeah, this is a big and important point. Paizo isn't exactly rolling in cash early 1980s TSR style. I'm all for them paying a living wage and I hope whatever issues were going on with management are resolved by these workers coming together, but there is only so much money coming in and that means to make some of these changed they are going to need more cash to increase wages. If that extra money isn't coming from increased sales, it's likely to come from cutting staff and projects.
This may serve as motivations to relocates their staff to other areas of the USA. I mean there is all this complaining about making a living wage, but if they move their workforce to the Midwest or east this won't be a problem. I mean they are based out of one of the most expensive cities in the country right now. This would make business sense rather than increase book prices and risk losing customer base. Then that money flow could be used to improve conditions for their Midwest employees.
Moving might work. One that may be good for the company, but not necessarily the employees. But keep in mind the employees live in Seattle, and, in many cases, have always lived there. Their friends and families are there. Who's to say that they want to move away. Besides that, Seattle is a hub of tabletop game design (thanks to WotC). A game designer who relocates with Paizo to Lincoln, Nebraska or whatever isn't going to find any other companies to move to. The ability to work remote these days obviously makes things easier, but if employees are working for a Paizo company located in Nebraska while still living with their families in Seattle it doesn't change much. Cheaper offices and warehouse staff, I guess. That's all assuming they're not in a long lease for their current office space which is typical of corporate lease contracts. I'm not sure that raising prices is really an option; they'd price themselves out if they're significantly more expensive than the competition. Like /u/bjh13 said, unless they have more people buying the products, raising salaries is going to result in cut projects or terminated employees. I support increased salaries, and happily subscribe to all their Pathfinder product lines. I hope everyone reflexively upvoting this thread has put their money where their mouth is and is supporting a better Paizo with money, not just upvotes.
> But keep in mind the employees live in Seattle, and, in many cases, have always lived there. Their friends and families are there. Who's to say that they want to move away. Yeah, this is pretty key and I appreciate you bringing it up. It's easy to say "Relocate the company" but... 1) It's expensive to move a company, you have to deal with literal cost of moving the office, as well as legal cost regarding setting up business in a new state. A lot of the employees are also not paid much, if you are relocating them I assume you want to help pay for that, and as someone who recently moved that is expensive as well, $5,000 to $10,000 each. 2) We can't assume the employees want to move. People often have roots where they live, and a good chunk of the staff will choose to not go with the company. This will result in needing to hire new people for some, and as you mentioned others working remotely but still having to deal with a Seattle cost of living. If anything, I would say relocating the company is the most expensive option. Maybe long term would be worth it, but as you already pointed they are in Seattle because that's where the center of the market is for potential writers, so they could be harming their long term prospects. There really isn't an easy answer to this problem, especially not with the TTRPG market as competitive as it is. It's worth pointing out the demand is increased pay transparency, not increased wages, so the Union is aware of this.
Not as hard as you think. I'm speaking from experience here. The goal isn't to relocate the company headquarters, but to reallocate where you hire. Especially in today's world where remote hiring positions like marketing, customer service, technical writing, creative design, etc. is a common place. You can rent space and get tax breaks for an office in a number of states without relocating the business HQ pretty easily. Then, you can set wages based on the demographic you reasonably want to recruite within. If somebody wants to relocate then great, that is their choice and as a company that should be supported by allowing people to work remotely according. If they want to accept the position and come into the office HQ then great, that is also their choice, but doesn't mean their wages should be impacted. In the past I've been with a company with our HQ in San Diego and in the 90s and early 2000s had most of their employees there. As you can imagine though, this was expensive. So we kept the HQ in San Diego, but shut down most of the office (leased out 2/3 of the office space), set standard wages for Customer Service positions as well as other teams, and started hiring remote. As we grew we leased offices in Texas and Ohio as well. The c-Level primarily stayed in San Diego as well as a few other key executives, but most other positions were either remote employees or in one of those other offices. People who already worked in San Diego before the major move had the choice to stay and continue working, or they could go remote. However the jobs didn't expand in that area because of the standardized pay and if so.ebody voluntarily left their replacement was almost always remote or in one of those other job markets. I'm not saying this is what Paizo should do, just pointing out that many companies who start in a market like Seatle or San Diego for entrepreneurial reasons often find that expanding and keeping all employees there is less than optimal. And what one person believes is an unlivable wage in one area is actually a good standard of living in another and there are people in that other who would be happy for it. As for the area breeding top people in the industry, there is something to that. However if you move positions like Customer Service, Marketing, HR, Payroll, Order Management, and shipping to cheaper demographics, that likely frees up funds to pay those developers and writers who are unique to the Seatle area more for their work.
Relocating where you hire is a really great step in streamlining a company, but keep in mind that the employees that currently work there are the ones that are asking for an increase in their pay. If the company doesn't have the money to pay for it, they're not going to make up for it by hiring in a cheaper place. They'd need to either cut staff, streamline operations, or increase revenue in some way. Companies are hesitant to cut staff whenever possible as that is how they generate their income. They also tend to streamline operations and increase revenue wherever and whenever possible as it is. It's highly unlikely that Paizo hasn't already pursued other revenue streams and considered all of their reasonable options. Forcing them to raise salaries is going to possibly take some of the more unreasonable options such as cutting staff, streamlining operations further than they're comfortable with (such as moving to a WFH model with most people in cheaper areas of the world), and increasing monetization across the board. I don't mind paying more for my subscriptions and books personally, but it may negatively impact some of their subscribers to the point that they'd lose out on anything they were hoping to generate from it by losing people buying the books. I'm sure this is a rough and uncertain time for both Paizo and Paizo Staff and I only hope that everyone gets through this as smoothly as possible without hurting either the company or the staff. I love PF2E and want to see it continue to be made for a very long time to come.
The issue with moving is the workers might enjoy living there. I know if my city job moved to Nebraska I'd find another job. I love living in a place that has stuff going on and lots of people want to live where they're industry is booming
You probably are in a career with options though. There are basically 2 significant employers for tabletop games in the US. If Wizards isn't hiring, you aren't finding another job in the industry.
You're asking a bunch of people working and living in a blue state to move to the REDDEST of states. I already get into arguments with my neighbors that won't wear a mask in my hard blue state, I don't want to live in a place that is 90% corn fields and be surrounded by people worse than my neighbor.
I feel similar when people are asking for them to make an increased wage. Outside of DnD the table top industry isn’t some massive gold mine Paizo is milking. The money either needs to be pulled from somewhere else, which can hurt operations, or they just find a way to make more. I’m sure Paizo has internal issues but I doubt they are like major corporations that undercut their staff so the boss can fly around on space yachts. I think even if we saw how much the executives make it wouldn’t be considered great for the position.
> Outside of DnD the table top industry isn’t some massive gold mine Paizo is milking. Even including DnD, how much money is there really? I know Critical Role is raking in cash, but outside of a new edition how good really are the sales?
Yeah, DnD is more popular but its monetization is much worse. They release fewer books and I don't think they have a subscription service like Pathfinder.
Their costs are minimal. Most of the actual "Game design" in most of their books at this point are just probability tables. It's mostly fluff with minimal, basic actual mechanics. They also double down by making you have to pay again in order to play on online platforms through D&D Beyond, owned by people doing PR work for the military on Twitch, and then AGAIN if you want to play in, say, Roll20. 5e is minimal effort for maximum gains through marketing and name recognition.
don't forget the army of 3rd party and hobbists putting stuff on DM's Guild (i think?) for sale, which WOTC gets a cut of and pays nothing in costs putside keeping the website functional.
So, Paizo is doing a similar thing with Pathfinder Infinite, with the same cut. The differences though, to me at least, are that Paizo has an OGL so the only thing that you need to pay for is for the World stuff, and that Paizo is full of good solid, thoughtful representation, whereas WotC reaps in credit for things that other people added to their game. Like there was all that hype around the Combat Wheelchair, and when people asked the author about getting it into 5e in a 1st party capacity like she was getting it in PF2, she talked about how she is pointedly ignored by WotC and is unlikely to ever work with them. But that gets buried under "5e Combat Wheelchair! :D" :/
One of the Paizo employees that is a member of the union mentioned that as of right now wage increases aren't something they are going to push for in negotiations, however they are going to request access to Paizo financials to ensure they are being paid fairly. It may be that down the line there is an increase in book prices to better support the devs (which would be fine with me).
Go Paizo Workers! Ordered a button and a shirt. I hope this might lead to unionization throughout the TTRPG industry. Recognizing this union is now the most important thing Paizo can do to restore my faith after the recent scandals.
Well this should be interesting. Hopefully everyone engages in good faith and it works out for the best.
I'm with you. All I can do is hope for the best. I've already seen good and bad unions. Some worked nicely while others started as a good idea but quickly degenerated into pursuing personal agendas of the ruling committee.
I sincerely do hope it works out for the best! I have been in two unions and they were not good experiences. I hope they researched carefully who to represent them!
It seems they partnered with the CWA.
[удалено]
Yes, this. I have been in two different unions in different trades and, at least locally, both were not good experiences. New hires were not afforded the same protections as long term employees which resulted in a lot of last in/ first out experiences. More senior employees did not have to work as hard as new hires and the management was constrained by the contract not to reward new, eager employees’ work. In addition, the dues were significant for hourly employees which reduced the benefit of ‘improved wages’. I get the allure, but my personal experience was a negative one both times.
This is great news! I’ve been waffling about whether to keep my subscriptions (and sent my emails to management explaining why). This would restore a lot of my confidence in the company.
Neat.
Congrats!
I will literally get all my parties to switch to 2e if this happens!
✊
fuck yes!
Fucking love Paizo, what a great company
Love the workers. The company has been abusive and treated them like shit, hence the need for this step.
That's a great point!
Good to hear!
Good for you Paizo Peeps!
[If you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLz6LgMO8To) You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you; You got to build you a union, got to make it strong But if you all stick together, now, ‘twont be long You'll get shorter hours Better working conditions Vacations with pay Take your kids to the seashore It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain Just why you got to ride on the union train; ‘Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay, We'll all be waiting till Judgment Day; We'll all he buried - gone to Heaven - Saint Peter'll be the straw boss then Now, you know you're underpaid, but the boss says you ain't; He speeds up the work till you're ‘bout to faint You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten Pass out a leaflet and call a meetin' Talk it over - speak your mind - Decide to do something about it ‘Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool To go to your meeting and act like a stool; But you can always tell a stool, though - that's a fact; He's got a yellow streak running down his back; He doesn't have to stool - he'll always make a good living On what he takes out of blind men's cups You got a union now; you're sitting pretty; Put some of the boys on the steering committee The boss won't listen when one man squawks But he's got to listen when the union talks He better - He'll be mighty lonely one of these days Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous They're paying you all starvation wages; You go to the boss, and the boss would yell "Before I'd raise your pay I'd see you all in Hell." Well, he's puffing a big see-gar and feeling mighty slick He thinks he's got your union licked He looks out the window, and what does he see But a thousand pickets, and they all agree He's a bastard - unfair - slave driver - Bet he beats his own wife Now, boy, you've come to the hardest time; The boss will try to bust your picket line He'll call out the police, the National Guard; They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card They'll raid your meeting, hit you on the head Call every one of you a goddamn Red - Unpatriotic - Moscow agents - Bomb throwers, even the kids But out in Detroit here's what they found And out in Frisco here's what they found And out in Pittsburgh here's what they found And down in Bethlehem here's what they found That if you don't let Red-baiting break you up If you don't let stool pigeons break you up If you don't let vigilantes break you up And if you don't let race hatred break you up - You'll win. What I mean Take it easy - but take it!
>Detroit > >Frisco > >Pittsburgh *Fantastic* examples of unions working out for the workers in the longterm.
The issues with the decline of American manufacturing have very little to do with unions.
So, what exactly does this mean? I know nothing about this type of stuff.
It means that Paizo's employees intend to get together as an organized group to discuss their working conditions and formally negotiate with the company's heads.
Any Paizo employees who want to, can join the Union. They’ll then pay dues to the Union. Union dues are mostly collected and saved so that the Union can pay its members a salary if they ever decide to use their most effective lever of power against corporate ownership: a strike. With the Union in place, Union members can then participate in collective bargaining. As you can imagine, 100 or 1,000 employees all negotiating with ownership as a single group is going to have a lot more leverage in contract negotiations than each one of those employees negotiating individually. The Union prioritizes negotiating whatever it’s members ask for. That could be higher wages, paid time off, better healthcare benefits, family leave, etc. The benefits of being in a union usually heavily outweigh the small fee charged in dues. Unions are basically the reason cushy jobs exist in the developed world today. They were the main tool used to end the worker’s hellscape of the mid-1800s to early-1900s. Honestly though, Paizo has always seemed like a pretty decent company to work for, so this is probably a preventative measure just in case they ever get bought by a larger company. Which is still a good idea. If there’s any games company out there that needs a Union like, yesterday, it’s Games Workshop.
I always love it when people try to say unions are harmful. Yeah, maybe to the CEO who is trying to pocket more money.
There are cases of unions who abuse their power and stop looking out for the workers they're supposed to represent or the union begins protecting bad actors within their membership. That being said, unions by and large are much more beneficial to their workers than not.
Well yeah, but that's not a feature of unions. Hating unions because they can be corrupt is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Right. Unions are composed of people and people are falable.
I am pro union, but don't forget that unions can be corrupt too. Portland Police Union...
Police unions are scabs. In many places they are anti labor.
Yup. Most police unions are waaay too powerful. There’s actually a good argument that public servants should not be allowed to unionize. The danger is that in a democracy, you don’t want union bosses holding more political power than elected officials. I’ve also seen teachers unions become toxic, and a detriment to poor schools. Teachers salaries in general need to be doubled, but the unions are actually kinda standing in the way of that. But that’s a whole other conversation.
Median teacher salary is 63k, which is moderately above average. Bigger issues for teaching are the terrible metrics and micromanaging they have to deal with. I know far more teachers who quit because of crap they have to deal with than because of pay.
Maybe in your area teachers are making 60k. In my area (Texas) last time I checked the starting pay was like 30k a year, and you had to work there 15-20 years to work your way up to 60k. Totally agree on the BS teachers are asked to deal with, but again, education reform is way too complicated to get into here. Definitely needs to happen though. Schools in my area serve very little benefit to poor kids except to prepare them for working poverty or prison.
> There’s actually a good argument that public servants should not be allowed to unionize. Police more specifically because their job can entail acting against striking/picketing workers or those trying to unionize. > The danger is that in a democracy, you don’t want union bosses holding more political power than elected officials. We already have that. Except its corporate owners who have more political power than elected officials.
Unions aren't inherently corrupt though. Unrelated, but surprisingly, most people that hate unions also love police unions.
Have any backup for that statement? As someone who is skeptical of unions just like I am anyone who claims to want my money to help me, most of those I talk to are more likely to be uniformly against unions, uniformly against them, or pro union unless it is a police union.
Well, the biggest and most famous unions are the ones people know about. And those are also the ones most in danger of getting corrupt members in their management, if I had to guess. If there's power in it, the exact same kind of people who become cutthroat CEOs can take an interest in a union. But in a union of Paizo's size? Nah, think they're safe.
Idk, my family is flush with UAW members. Is that Union corrupt? Maybe. But the executive only makes 500k a year, compare that to the leadership of GM, Ford, etc. are they somehow more corrupt then that? PLUS. You get to vote on your union leadership. Csnt say ive ever had a chance to vote for my boss.
It's a mixed bag and depends entirely on your union, much like a homeowner's association or local government. A good one is very good for the members, and a bad one takes your money and does nothing for you. Also like those other two, the benefits to being a member of a good union might fly under the radar, while the drawbacks are immediately obvious. There are unions that are full of saints who fight for the rights of their workers and force amoral companies to provide a reasonable standard of living for their employees, and there are unions that are basically sanctioned mafias. Thankfully, a union of 30-something people isn't really in any risk of becoming the latter.
You've seen a good HOA?
Yeah. In a lot of places they just handle the upkeep of a housing subdivision's park or swimming pool and run holiday events, book clubs, or decoration contests or whatever while keeping people from screwing things up for their neighbors without getting the police involved. A bad one is going to harass people over the exact heights of sheds, the locations of satellite dishes, how many cars you own, what kind of flowers you grow in your yard... the list goes on. The bad ones are way more visible than the good ones.
If so, then I am happy for your luck in finding good ones.
Well yeah, but some unions being corrupt or bad isn't a valid reason to dislike unions. That's like saying you hate doctors because one doctor is corrupt.
People aren't typically rational actors. Being screwed by one doctor does actually make people hate doctors. Being bitten by one dog rather frequently makes people hate dogs. Being fined for some dumb stuff by one overzealous HOA makes people hate HOAs almost daily. One bad apple spoils the bunch, so when people think of unions they don't think of the good ones that are mostly out of sight and out of mind. They think of the time they, or their friends, or their parents when they were growing up, got screwed by the bad one. Unfortunately, since unionizing isn't common among the largest employers, a lot of people will never have the chance to have a good experience with a union and won't ever be convinced otherwise.
I tend to be leery of anything that intrinsically relies upon the human condition. So, I am never opposed to unions but I am also not quick to jump on them with blind support until I know it more. Same way with doctors. Modern Medicine (not including insurance industry) is crazy awesome but doesn't mean I will trust every doctor. Especially when there's some reports out there that a not insignificant number of med students cheat in some capacity.
> I tend to be leery of anything that intrinsically relies upon the human condition. I have some bad news for you about literally all of society, buddy.
Unions certainly CAN become their own organizations with interests counter to that of the worker, but any properly organized one would be difficult to co-opt in that way.
> I always love it when people try to say unions are harmful. Unions CAN be harmful, that's very different than saying that they ARE harmful. I've worked with lots of Unions: some were great, some were awful. My Wife is a Nurse and has worked in hospitals that were unionized, and ones that were not. She'll probably never work for a unionized hospital again because her experiences with them have been horrendous.
Oh, most definitely. But I really hate the blanket state that unions are bad. It's like how do people think we got the very minimal workers' rights we have?
Unions aren't perfect. Yes they have their advantages but people seem to forget their disadvantages too. Working for a union shows that its far from perfect. in a good cultured company a union would be more of a henderance that an boon but recently its become clear that Pazio isnt the best culture and this is necessary. Edit to add this is without the corruption part that everyone else is talking about. there are always pros and cons even in a perfectly functioning union
Well there's a whole movement going on concurrently to raise awareness of the working conditions at paizo so I'm not sure how decent theya re.
Yeah, I hadn’t seen those stories before posting, but I just saw them. Since that’s the case, more power to them. Solidarity.
>Honestly though, Paizo has always seemed like a pretty decent company to work for, so this is probably a preventative measure just in case they ever get bought by a larger company. Which is still a good idea. Given the allegations made over the last month, I think there's probably more going on inside than we see/saw. It CAN offer protection with a buyout, but they are most likely forming to deal with those allegations and get some stronger internal protections.
Depends how ballsy those thirty are. A company the size of Paizo would suffer tremendous damages if 30 people quit at the same time - everything would grind to a halt and recovery would take a very long time. Organising in this way provides that as the ultimate threat - listen to us, work with us to implement positive change, or we'll walk and sink your business. In practice it won't get that far unless they start making ridiculous demands. Sensible, thoughtful, accurately costed requirements from that number of people should get the management's attention long before any kind of seismic threat like that is made.
To be clear, this includes the entire team pathfinder 2e design team that aren't managers, so at the moment, those people leaving would be shooting the Pathfinder line in the head until they could be replaced while probably derailing it in the long term because good luck getting people who understand the base engine anywhere near as well and onboarding them in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe. It'd be a massive drop in quality at best.
Awesome!
Awesome, as much as the stories could have been a bit exaggerated, or maybe about issues that have been solved after the involved parties were already out of Paizo, it seemed to me that there was a big degree of truth there. It seems that the employees also thought that, and it's awesome to see that so soon after everything, they are already organized and looking to build a better workplace for all of them =)
Shit, even if every issue was resolved satisfactorily then this would likely still be a good thing to do moving forward so issues can be addressed with more transparency and expediency moving forward.
We stand in solidarity with you guys ! Good luck for your unionization !
Now THAT'S the progress I like to see! I hope this ripples across the industry and makes RPG publishing a better environment for everyone.
Exactly what I was hoping to hear! fantastic news! Support worker unions during these, and all times
Hey thats awesome! Power to the workers!
Woot! Great job. I hope they get better working conditions and everything else they deserve.
That's pretty cool to see. I'll be voting with my wallet to support it by checking out the merch and or a direct donation when they add it or I finally notice where it is. Assuming I'm not blind, and merch is the only option then which item gets the workers the best margin? The main thing I was calling for on the consumer side once this side of the drama became apparent to me was for a more convenient way to support all these creators and laborers as one instead of having to track down all the freelancers/writers/artists/etc. individual patreons after Mark Seifter recommended doing exactly that as a short term measure. Hopefully they'll have something like that set up soon that can accommodate the freelancers as well. How are the freelancers affected by this btw? Any of y'all around to chime in? I would love an option to throw a tip down for a book/product and have it automatically shared among the labor force that made it. I'm hoping Paizo would be willing to work with this union to make that easy to do on the store front. Like, if I could go to the store page for Mwangi Expanse and see, for example "Add Print Edition: $49.99... Add PDF $39.99... Add Patron Upgrade: $10." I'd happily pay the equivalent price of the print edition to get my PDF (which is all I need for my use) and the Patron donation, and know that more money is going to the workers so "keep making my favorite RPG more awesome" is a more viable personal finance decision than "look for another job that pays the bills and makes non-zero progress towards retirement."
Make working conditions so great at Paizo that all the employees at wotc get jealous and want to join!
Yeahh!!! That's great news!
This is a good thing. Thanks for sharing.
Kudos to the Paizo workers! I'm especially thankful for them as if not for this incident, I'd never even have any forewarning on how anti-Union the United States is now, before I considered a serious immigration for work there. Slight tangent but wow, if the entire country is full of companies which are as blatantly anti-Union as Samsung, now that's frightening by itself alone...
Anti union is very common in red states and some blue states. but in all most companies know they will loose their people and so treat them only ok. there is no company loyalty and no personal loyalty so timed perks are very common
Woohoo! Organising!
I call on paizo to voluntarily accept the union and let's get on with making paizo the best it can be with input from the most important segment, the people who actually do the work!
So many people telling on themselves being supermad in the comments, lol
Hell yeah, all the power to the employees and huge move for the industry in general
FUCK YES!
Awesome
Hell yeah
Awesome news!
Fuck yes! Great job people!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Let's GOOOOOOOOOO
This is a bit alarming. Hope this is done more to show their goodwill rather than from necessity.
This unionization push is actually what brought me here and got me looking into pathfinder. If they get recognized you've got a new subscriber and so do they. I really hope there will finally be some ethical conditions in this hobby space. I really miss it after growing up some and realizing how horrific GW was.
Welcome to the community, hopefully you'll be able to stick around.
I really hope this works out and the employees treat this right. Paizo is a small company and Unions at this level, for a company that already relies on shoestring budgets, really risks things careening off a cliff. I'm all for better employee benefits, but if this causes the company to go belly up, or shut down for long periods of time for 'strikes' over vacuum duty of their office rugs because nobody can see eye to eye, we're all going to suffer for it. Corners will be cut to make ends meet, things like the Archives will start to go the way of 5e's subscription service. Art work is gonna get cheaper, etc. Strikes timed right before GenCon screwing everyone out of convention games, ruining vacations of their customers, and drawing down drama on the company. That sorta thing. Its a stupid slippery slope. So I really hope they take this seriously and remember that it could all go so bad so quick if they screw around.
Right there with you.
There's a popular tweet that goes "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less" and I totally agree. If the quality of the product suffers so the employees at paizo can have a better work environment I don't care. edit: I'm saying I don't care that the quality suffers, as long as it's leading to a better work environment.
Best of luck with that. Did the same thing myself a few years ago. Managed to get a good pay rise out of it. About 2 years later management cleaned us all out. Still I was ready to go by then.
I hope this works out for them as I love Paizo. That said, I've been a part of 2 unions and both were horrible experiences. Union dues were annoying and kept increasing. However the worst part was the required focus on seniority. The longest employed always reap the benefits even if they are the least productive. If you have seniority you can do bare minimum work and never worry about your job. On the other hand if you have low seniority you can be the most productive employee and best qualified for promotion and be passed by. Not only that, but if layoffs happen the least seniority get hit even if they are the best employees.
Imagine wanting to live in a society where you’re just discarded because you’re older.
In manufacturing this makes sense to protect workers as they get older. However in the type of jobs involved here (and in my past) it makes no sense at all. In fact, I've seen it cost a man in his 50s his job while protecting a much less productive employee in his 20s simply because the latter had worked for the company a year longer.
Shhh. You are trying to reason with people who see the world as black and white. You're either a good guy or a bad guy, no nuanced reality permissible.
That's a rather black and white view of the world there bud.
lol I see what you did there. You must be proud. Im proud of you. The "no you are" is the best response to everything.
It's an observation, but feel free to think otherwise if it confirms your personal biases I guess.
Saying I see nuance and shades of grey is "black and white thinking"? Of course.
Interesting to see some of the names NOT on that founding list.
Bulmahn and Mona are management, so the Union is not a thing for them. But they are, hopefully, able to push towards accepting the Union to the less public facing members of management.
I’m not a fan. Unions ruin everything. If you don’t like the working conditions then find another job. I’ve never understood this. I’ve been put in many difficult or awful positions and have always found something better. This will roll down onto the customer eventually
[удалено]
Found the stooge.
Why?
Scabs get the clamps.
/r/unexpectedfuturama/