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Sega of America employees form AEGIS labor union

The supermajority of the 144 employees in Sega's Irvine, California office have opted to unionize.

Ozzie Mejia

April 24, 2023 11:15 AM

@takesAEGIS on Twitter

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The continued push for labor unionization in the gaming industry has reached one of the largest video game companies in the world. The supermajority of employees at Sega of America have come together to form a new labor union called the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS).

Here's part of the statement that was posted to the new AEGIS Twitter account:

Our mission as a union is to attain:

• Higher base pay for all, following industry standards, with raises tied to the cost of living and inflation.
• Improved, stable benefits for all, including healthcare, retirement, remote work opportunities, and more.
• Increased, clearly outlined opportunities for advancement.
• Balanced workloads and schedules, and defined responsibilities for all positions.
• Adequate staffing of departments to end patterns of overwork.

Our demands are already in line with Sega's core values. These measures will serve to strengthen our company and improve the quality of the games we produce. As we secure better working conditions for Sega of America, we look forward to continuing to collaborate with Sega branches worldwide.

The new AEGIS union will function in partnership with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The next step is Sega's response, whether it opts to voluntarily recognize the union. There is no word from Sega management as of the time of this post. Management doesn't always opt to recognize the formation of labor unions, as evidenced earlier this year with Activision Blizzard refusing to recognize the Proletariat Games union without a formal NLRB vote.

The labor union movement has already spread to the aforementioned Activision Blizzard, as well as Ubisoft and ZeniMax, just to name a few examples. We'll continue to monitor this story as it develops.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?