Layoffs SEGA Laying Off 61 Staff as Union Warns of "Negative Impact" to Work Conditions

[Dreadknux]

SEGA of America is moving ahead with layoffs on 8 March 2024, that will affect 61 employees across the company's quality assurance and localisation departments.

The notice, relayed via a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) that was shared on Twitter earlier today, states that staff from two offices in Irvine, California will be impacted, with 12 being laid off in one office and 49 in another (as per GI.biz).

Proposed layoffs were made public back in November, following the successful unionisation of SEGA America's QA and localisation workers in July 2023. The plans were fought by the resulting Allied Employees Guild Improving SEGA (AEGIS) union for months before this apparent final decision had been made today, with AEGIS at the time alleging that SEGA America had not bargained in "good faith" by sidestepping union protocol.

An Unfair Labor Practice charge was reportedly made against SEGA in November, but as we previously reported, any investigation is unlikely to conclude before these layoffs take place.

Today, AEGIS released a statement on social media that took a dim view of SEGA's decision, but also announced that "through our union efforts, we’ve been able to more than double the number of saved jobs, and to offer severance to our temp workers." You can read the full statement below.

Quote

A few months ago, Sega management announced their plan to outsource QA and part of Localization in a move that would significantly impact our workforce.

We’ve been fighting back on these terms since then, but today the layoff that will result in the loss of 61 jobs across these two departments was made public.

Through our union efforts, we’ve been able to more than double the number of saved jobs, and to offer severance to our temp workers.

This, however, does not take away from the fact that many of our coworkers are being laid off in a decision we believe will have a negative impact on the working conditions of those who remain with the company, and in the quality of our future games.

In spite of this, we remain committed to fighting for our coworkers, and for the betterment of our industry. In the face of mass layoffs that continue to happen across gaming companies, we stand united and in solidarity with those affected.

Sonic News Tips Credit:
Shiny Gems

Original Post Content:
Geez, I do feel bad for those who are going to get laid off here, so I do hope things end up well for them somehow after the layoffs happen. Quite a shame, if you ask me.

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[Strickerx5]

Heart goes out to all affected by this. Another reminder that Sega is a corpo, greedy and manipulative like the rest of them.

Every other day there’s news of a tech company doing layoffs. It’s so gd frustrating with how most of them got there.

[Endoian]

I feel very sad for those who were fired, it will affect their finances a lot, I hope they can move on and I wish them the best with all my heart. And the truth is, SEGA should take this to improve their quality of work and raise their salaries, workers need more recognition and not just executives and important people in the company.

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

It's such a shame a great franchise like Sonic is attached to these MF'ers.

All megacorps are greedy, that's why they are so big in name and have so much money.

[castell-neath]

2 hours ago, Ming Ming Hatsune said:

It's such a shame a great franchise like Sonic is attached to these MF'ers.

All megacorps are greedy, that's why they are so big in name and have so much money.

100% agree. A great IP such as Sonic being tied to a company that has lowered itself to such a level is a shame. Sega have really not been the best in terms of quite a few things recently.

[Tornado]

This isn't just a Sega thing. It's not just a videogame thing. It's not just a tech thing. Companies are still contracting from a variety of things borne out of COVID (overhiring, shrinking of consumer spending but most importantly money no longer being essentially free to borrow) so this will happen in a lot of places throughout the year. UPS laid off like 12,000 people on Monday; and I think it's just coincidence that this happened following the Sega unionization vote from last year.

[ChaosCTRL]

Hopefully those affected by the layoff will be able to bounce back quickly. It sucks that things like this happen.

[KHCast]

3 hours ago, Tornado said:

This isn't just a Sega thing. It's not just a videogame thing. It's not just a tech thing. Companies are still contracting from a variety of things borne out of COVID (overhiring, shrinking of consumer spending but most importantly money no longer being essentially free to borrow) so this will happen in a lot of places throughout the year. UPS laid off like 12,000 people on Monday; and I think it's just coincidence that this happened following the Sega unionization vote from last year.

I think the issue is that with the game industry especially, there were layoffs like this actively already happening a lot pre covid. So regardless of circumstance, this certainly didn’t help the game industry’s case, especially when you’ve got a bunch of shitty executives running the show killing projects and studios, sinking money in live services, desperately trying to replace workers using AI, heavily monetizing their games only to have to kill them because they’re surprised people aren’t able to spend money continuously on every live service game for eternity, shift away from the concept of game ownership, and placing the consequences for their bad decisions (like trying to integrate NFT’s in games) on the workers. And we can’t forget these companies efforts at every chance given to give the finger to the concept of unions and worker job security and fair treatment and wages.
 

Like the game industry is actively being made worse, covid unfortunately just sped up a problem that was already really fucking bad. Unfortunately, game companies can now use THAT as the excuse for all this happening and wipe their hands clean of any responsibility that was previously applied to them. 
 

Basically, you’re right that this current sweep of mass layoffs is more or less a knock on effect of covid, but covid definitely ain’t the sole reason at play here imo. Corporate greed and ineptitude/capitalism being capitalism and fucking everyone not a billionaire certainly are factors here 

Edited January 31 by KHCast

[Rabbitearsblog]

12 hours ago, castell-neath said:

100% agree. A great IP such as Sonic being tied to a company that has lowered itself to such a level is a shame. Sega have really not been the best in terms of quite a few things recently.

As @Tornadostated, this isn't just SEGA laying off the workers.  Most of the other gaming companies have also been laying off workers and this is something that most big corporations tend to do, even though it's a really scummy thing to do.  Like for instance, in America, there was the Writers' and the SAG strikes that happened last year and the big movie companies could have easily agreed to the terms that the writers and the actors wanted from the very beginning.  But instead, the executives in the movie studios dragged the strikes on longer than was really necessary and it caused a lot of movies and TV shows to be delayed as a result.  So yeah, these large corporations have a nasty habit of making things difficult for the workers involved.