CD Projekt staff form union after layoffs - and want everybody in the industry to join

6 months 2 weeks ago

There's a side mission in Cyberpunk 2077 that involves abducting a notorious union-breaker. One wonders if any of the people who worked on that have joined the union founded by CD Projekt RED employees this month. The union is part of the larger Polish worker's organisation OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza, and comes in response to CD Projekt's firing around 100 employees in July due to "overstaffing". Its membership is anonymous and open to people in the industry who aren't employed by the Witcher and Cyberpunk studio, but are thinking about forming a union in their own workplace.

"We started talking about unionizing after the 2023 wave of layoffs when 9% of Reds (that is roughly 100 people) were let go," reads an official FAQ from the group. "This event created a tremendous amount of stress and insecurity, affecting our mental health and leading to the creation of this union in response. Having a union means having more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis."

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Author
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell