Ubisoft France Workers Picket After Union Negotiations For Salaries Fail | MMORPG.com

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Ubisoft France Workers Picket After Union Negotiations For Salaries Fail  | MMORPG.com

Over 700 workers picketed outside the Ubisoft France office this Valentine's Day, coordinated by a national video game industry union.

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caalem

Ubisoft opened a new Singapore studio a couple months ago. A large percentage of Ubisoft employees are in East Asia.

What plan does their union have in place when Ubisoft decides to just close their westen studios?

Vrika

caalem said:

Ubisoft opened a new Singapore studio a couple months ago. A large percentage of Ubisoft employees are in East Asia.

What plan does their union have in place when Ubisoft decides to just close their westen studios?

Wages in Singapore are about as high as they are in the west. It's a place company might move because they lack skilled labor, not a place they'd move to save money.

Kyleran

Vrika said:

caalem said:

Ubisoft opened a new Singapore studio a couple months ago. A large percentage of Ubisoft employees are in East Asia.



What plan does their union have in place when Ubisoft decides to just close their westen studios?

Wages in Singapore are about as high as they are in the west. It's a place company might move because they lack skilled labor, not a place they'd move to save money.

My guess is productivity per worker in SG would be higher for same money spent.

SG Hours

• If you work 5 days a week: up to 9 hours per day or 44 hours a week
• If you work more than 5 days a week: up to 8 hours per day or 44 hours a week

France 

The standard working hours in France are a maximum of 35 hours (7 hours a day, five days a week) per full-time week for all companies regardless of their workforce …

Vrika

Kyleran said:

Vrika said:

caalem said:

Ubisoft opened a new Singapore studio a couple months ago. A large percentage of Ubisoft employees are in East Asia.



What plan does their union have in place when Ubisoft decides to just close their westen studios?

Wages in Singapore are about as high as they are in the west. It's a place company might move because they lack skilled labor, not a place they'd move to save money.

My guess is productivity per worker in SG would be higher for same money spent.

Ubisoft has had a studio in Singapore for 15 years, and it has currently 450 employees out of Ubisoft's 19 000+ total. 

It was probably a good place for Ubisoft to expand, but this isn't a situation that should be read as "Western workers are losing their jobs to Singapore". Rather it's a normal situation where large multinational company like Ubisoft operates in a lot of places around the globe.

riningear

Kyleran said:

Vrika said:

caalem said:

Ubisoft opened a new Singapore studio a couple months ago. A large percentage of Ubisoft employees are in East Asia.





What plan does their union have in place when Ubisoft decides to just close their westen studios?

Wages in Singapore are about as high as they are in the west. It's a place company might move because they lack skilled labor, not a place they'd move to save money.

My guess is productivity per worker in SG would be higher for same money spent.

SG Hours

• If you work 5 days a week: up to 9 hours per day or 44 hours a week
• If you work more than 5 days a week: up to 8 hours per day or 44 hours a week

France 

The standard working hours in France are a maximum of 35 hours (7 hours a day, five days a week) per full-time week for all companies regardless of their workforce …

Nobody actually works the full of 8 hours a day in a 5-day workweek, LOL. In fact, companies, including in the gaming industry, find their productivity goes up when they maintain salaries and slash off a day.

Kyleran

riningear said:

Kyleran said:

Vrika said:

caalem said:

Ubisoft opened a new Singapore studio a couple months ago. A large percentage of Ubisoft employees are in East Asia.





What plan does their union have in place when Ubisoft decides to just close their westen studios?

Wages in Singapore are about as high as they are in the west. It's a place company might move because they lack skilled labor, not a place they'd move to save money.

My guess is productivity per worker in SG would be higher for same money spent.

SG Hours

• If you work 5 days a week: up to 9 hours per day or 44 hours a week
• If you work more than 5 days a week: up to 8 hours per day or 44 hours a week

France 

The standard working hours in France are a maximum of 35 hours (7 hours a day, five days a week) per full-time week for all companies regardless of their workforce …

Nobody actually works the full of 8 hours a day in a 5-day workweek, LOL. In fact, companies, including in the gaming industry, find their productivity goes up when they maintain salaries and slash off a day.

Link please, need to send it to my employer.

lordsmok

dont like pay in your job? chage job it is what I do...

Scot

I'm sorry Victoria but I have to question both your article and your post. France being "one of the most proactive about worker and citizen rights, with a reputation of protesting" is not as wonderful as you seem to think it is.

Their economy has struggled because of this attitude the French have. We here in the UK benefit from this as many entrepreneurs get fed up with the French obsession with rights and move to the UK.

Let me add that in the UK when we went through a period of never ending strikes we were in the economic doldrums in the UK for about 15 to 20 years. It is not healthy for an economy and people can't seem to see past the fact they will get a bigger wage.

As to the fabled four day French working week that is wrapped up in myth. France is currently considering moving to a four day week, which is strange considering so many people think they already have one!

The four day week appeals because we are working less and the "reasons" are marshaled accordingly. Does anyone genuinely think they can get five days work done in four days?

At least some journalists are not drawn in by the lure of an extra day off making them think it will make them overall more productive:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtsteinhorst/2023/03/13/challenging-the-hype-why-a-four-day-work-week-wont-solve-burnout/

This item goes into some ways I think we could genuinely help people feeling 'burn out' at work. By all means respond, but as we are not meant to be doing politics on these forums that's my last post on this thread.

riningear

Well, this is supposed to be about shifting wages with inflation, but since it's been brought up...

Scot said:

By all means respond, but as we are not meant to be doing politics on these forums that's my last post on this thread.

Saying we shouldn't be working our asses off for less productivity and wages per hour isn't political! I think my 10-year-old backlog would be more taken care of. Anyway...

Scot said:

Their economy has struggled because of this attitude the French have. We here in the UK benefit from this as many entrepreneurs get fed up with the French obsession with rights and move to the UK.

UK business owners do that to America too... so they can pay less taxes, less benefits, and have more rights as business owners. We get a lot of your upper-class business owners here in NYC. And even in America, a lot of business owners incorporate in one specific state so they can pay less taxes and have less obligations - there are more corporations in Delaware than there are people. It's just how a lot of wealthy business owners act when they'd rather be profitable than kind.

Scot said:

Let me add that in the UK when we went through a period of never ending strikes we were in the economic doldrums in the UK for about 15 to 20 years. It is not healthy for an economy and people can't seem to see past the fact they will get a bigger wage.

Aren't the Brits protesting a lot again lately? Typically the issue precedes the walkouts, and it's the issue that the protested companies just don't wish to budge because their 70-year-old lives are somehow better defined by wealth than a greater good. Especially given the attempts at privatizing the NHS and the driving up of energy costs...

Scot said:

As to the fabled four day French working week that is wrapped up in myth. France is currently considering moving to a four day week, which is strange considering so many people think they already have one!



The four day week appeals because we are working less and the "reasons" are marshaled accordingly. Does anyone genuinely think they can get five days work done in four days?



At least some journalists are not drawn in by the lure of an extra day off making them think it will make them overall more productive:



https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtsteinhorst/2023/03/13/challenging-the-hype-why-a-four-day-work-week-wont-solve-burnout/

But there's literally no sources in that link - it's just one guy giving his takes - as opposed to the studies being done:
https://www.4dayweek.com/uk-full-report-2023
https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=ww-research-methods-rsch202

And these studios in Canada:
https://blackbirdinteractive.com/4dww/
https://www.protocol.com/entertainment/four-day-work-week-gdc

But yes, Americans act like they only work four days too. Might as well treat the workweek like it

Mallyx

Unions always seem to get much stick in these forums. But you wouldn't have many of the worker rights you take for granted without unions. Yes, unions can get too much power and cause issues (see the UK in the 70's) but so can business owners and the rich elite. We are reading about lay offs after lay offs while these companies go on to record increases in profits. This is often driven by shareholders demanding more increase in there share price. This ends up with the actual workers suffering pay reductions (if your pay rise is below inflation the value of your pay has gone down) and their rights eroded away. There is always a balance to be struck and at the moment that is very much weighted towards the rich and powerful. The only weapon the workers have is to protest and withdraw their labour as a very last resort.