Paizo Recognizes United Paizo Workers

Elk yeah! That was much needed! Thanks, Paizo!

HUZZAH!

I spent some time looking for that comment ngl

This is great news. I'm looking forward to the positive momentum for change continuing.

I'm delighted to hear this news! Congratulations to my colleagues and friends at Paizo! This is a big good-faith step showing that the leadership is willing to take their concerns seriously, and while the issues raised won't be solved overnight, the workers now have a solid mechanism with which to do so.

Well done, Paizo staff, on all your hard work, and well done, my fellow freelancers, in standing with them! And thanks to the community at large for being so broadly supportive.

Nothing more to add than many others already have. Great news, best possible choice at this step. Really believe this can be the start of a stronger, fairer, more excellent Paizo.

All in all they had way more to gain from accepting and a hell of a lot to lose from not accepting that would outweigh any corporate issues (like needing to raise prices to meet demands that cost money and giving a little control of the company up).

From the tone the union was taking this might actually save Paizo some money as they expressed desire to help shoulder some of the worker issue stuff by providing a means by which to centralize them and have the information about the issues come from one source that's probably done some extra busy work to look into them. Which they expressed was a big issue as that was falling to the guy in charge of publishing, when that's kinda not even his actual job. The union handling that is kinda a whole "free" employee. Two or more in some business structures. It also helps team leads as they have more of a support structure for that task.

Throw on top of that the apparent news that the striking freelancers (last I heard) dropped most if not all their demands in favor of supporting the union and that's another problem at least temporarily sorted (or rather moved forward into a more final resolution).

It was all but a certainty they would accept really.

We may see some price increases, but overall the 10-20% some are expecting is still within typical price ranges for books in this hobby IMO.

Though I would hope that a price increase leads to a bit better clean-up in editing and sometimes formatting. The books are mostly great but there are often glaring errors editors can't catch because they aren't rules devs. Perhaps this could be fixed by slightly looser deadlines so writers can give an extra proofread? I wouldn't mind slightly slower content release for cleaner product.

I hope that many Paizo workers will join the Union. The Union is only as strong as the membertship.

Great news on the best day of the week. Friday (at least this is when I read it) Congratulations!!!!

As far as addressing prior harm. I think the developing some policies along with the Union and broader Union resources can help. This is a benefit for both Staff and Management. Beyond that I do not think much can be done with employees and management and staff that may not be there.

If it is current management. An investigation will need to be done for negative actions to be done.

Based on the Unions first goals was salary so that is the first thing being done. Taking a look at having more staff work from home can go along way with having salaries stretch farther.

Anyhow congratulations again on the Union.

As with my call to Paizo to recognise the union, I have sent a brief email directly to Erik, Lisa, and Jeff, to express my thanks and admiration for this step.

Ooh, I better do that.

Super happy to see this. Hope the union and the company remain on good terms and this remains beneficial for everyone!

This is so great! I was waiting for this announcement but missed it yesterday. It made my day to see it on Twitter. Congrats to everyone!

As a quick reminder, the emails to use are:

lisa.stevens@paizo.com
erik.mona@paizo.com
jeff.alvarez@paizo.com

I think it's also worth sending appreciation the way of the employees and freelancers who stood with the union, especially if you have any who you already especially admire! There are some names here, as well as a contact email address for the Organizing Committee.

As a quick reminder, the emails to use are:

lisa.stevens@paizo.com
erik.mona@paizo.com
jeff.alvarez@paizo.com

I think it's also worth sending appreciation the way of the employees and freelancers who stood with the union, especially if you have any who you already especially admire! There are some names here, as well as a contact email address for the Organizing Committee.

Thank you friend Kobold, will email now.

Oh to be a fly on the wall the first time a Paizo employee says, "Yeah, I'll get right on that."

This is such great news! This is a major moment in the industry. Thanks for doing the right thing

Honestly, this is great news, I am super happy to hear this, especially within a week. I don't have much more to add that no one else has said, so just ... huzzah! This is awesome news!

As a quick reminder, the emails to use are:

lisa.stevens@paizo.com
erik.mona@paizo.com
jeff.alvarez@paizo.com

Yeah, fair is fair. I was pretty direct in my emails, so it's only fair that I acknowledge and applaud their decision via the same medium.

Emails sent.

It would be really cool if this boosted sales, knowing that quality of life for paizo employees was better. And maybe it will attract more talented employees to want to work there too. Make me proud, humanity

As a Union member and representative in another economic sector, I think this is great. I hope that Paizo management will see this as an opportunity to provide a framework to work together and not a time to quash the power of their workers. Given that they voluntarily recognized the union, I have some hope of the former.

As a working member of the Allied Printing Trades Council, I would love too see the products produced in a Union Trade Facility someday, so we can say they are 100% union made. Not sure if this will ever be financially feasible , though with with tariffs, all the current issues of shipping from China, Us Print Market changing there strategies to compete and print technology making it cheaper to produce products, it becomes closer to a reality every day.

Regardless, Again, Proud of all the employees who got together , the Freelancers abd Paizo Management themselves, for making a Union possible!!

A good show of faith would be offering wrongly fired employees their old jobs back. With pay raises, bonuses, extended paid time off, and paid counseling to address the emotional trauma you've willingly and knowingly inflicted.

Woohoo! Going to buy some Starfinder as a little treat.

As a proud member of AFSCME and proud former member of IUPAT I salute my fellow workers and congratulate you and continue to wish you the best going forward.

I can't begin to express the relief that Paizo taking this seriously brings to me. It shouldn't I guess. I'm 2,800 miles away. No one at Paizo could pick me out of a lineup, maybe Mark Moreland or the lady who used to bring cookies to GenCon for GM’s, if she’s even around. I got disgruntled with PFS around Season 3, right after Josh Frost left. Stopped reporting one-shots. That was my protest. No reason really to protest other than Josh spent time at the Crowne with a room full of first time Pathfinder GM’s having cocktails and swapping stories from our tables.
That night more than any other solidified Pathfinder as being my RPG. Folks my age, guys who would have been my friends at Largo Middle School, had built an RPG and were starting to make it. Those guys would have been at home at our homebrew game while we tracked down Vecna’s various artifact body parts - scouring the Greyhawk map for clues as to the final resting place of those items. A guy named Mike and I brought PFS into Pinellas County. We hosted tables at my house in Largo. One of those early participants went on to replace Mike as the Venture Captain. We grew to love Pathfinder as a system, Golarion as a world, and Jason, Josh, Mark as our guides into this world that allowed us to escape shXt tech jobs, bad wives and the loss of friends to ‘Adult’ responsibilities.
Fast forward I don’t know how many years…. I move to Tallahassee. I’m in my 40’s. I don’t have any friends in Tally but a couple of guys I work with want to ‘get the gang back together’ and play an RPG. Desperate to make friends I agree to GM Rise of the Runelords for a table of 7. A table of 7. 2 Min-Maxers, 2 guys who care less about dice but create backstories to rival any character in the Marvel Universe and 3 folks who are character fault driven. I’m scared to death I can’t pull this off. I don’t know these guys well. I have no idea how to manage these personalities at a table but I didn’t need to. The incredible story of the origins of magic originating from the 7 Deadly Sins does all the work for me. The campaign rocks. Two years of twice a month sessions and the table never stops rocking. Our Cleric develops her own Cayden Cailean sect using the Golden Helmet from Thistletop as her banner, our Wizard takes ownership of the library and starts a magic school of his own. Paizo made it easy. I made friends during that campaign. It’s brutal making new friends in your 40’s, I owe you guys for that which is why it crushed me to hear that my ‘friends’ were being a-holes to some of their employees.
I couldn’t believe it, but couldn’t NOT believe it there were too many corroborating stories. My Paizo friends were acting like jackasses.
Thanks for starting the process of turning it around Paizo friends. I don’t think I’m alone when I say “We’re counting on you”

Great News!

Aaaaaand....it just got nuked again!

Why is Oedipus against swearing?

He kisses his mother with that mouth.

Aaaaaand....it just got nuked again!

Why is Oedipus against swearing?

He kisses his mother with that mouth.

<_< I thought the self censorship was ideal. Noted!

A good show of faith would be offering wrongly fired employees their old jobs back. With pay raises, bonuses, extended paid time off, and paid counseling to address the emotional trauma you've willingly and knowingly inflicted.

Well, that presumes one or more employees were “wrongly fired” and we have to no way to know why people were fired, nor do we have any right to know.

Viratha Ravenheart wrote:

A good show of faith would be offering wrongly fired employees their old jobs back. With pay raises, bonuses, extended paid time off, and paid counseling to address the emotional trauma you've willingly and knowingly inflicted.

Well, that presumes one or more employees were “wrongly fired” and we have to no way to know why people were fired, nor do we have any right to know.

Given that the firing and subsequent quitting-in-solidarity was the first note of the #PaizoAccountability trend - the thing that led to the freelancer work stoppage and a major concern of the unionization effort - I don’t know why you would think this.

Huzzah from CWA Local 1031 out here on the right coast.

#CWAStrong

Mark Stratton wrote:

Viratha Ravenheart wrote:

A good show of faith would be offering wrongly fired employees their old jobs back. With pay raises, bonuses, extended paid time off, and paid counseling to address the emotional trauma you've willingly and knowingly inflicted.

Well, that presumes one or more employees were “wrongly fired” and we have to no way to know why people were fired, nor do we have any right to know.

Given that the firing and subsequent quitting-in-solidarity was the first note of the #PaizoAccountability trend - the thing that led to the freelancer work stoppage and a major concern of the unionization effort - I don’t know why you would think this.

I must have missed the reason that Paizo terminated Sara Marie’s employment.

Edit: that sounds belligerent and I don’t mean it to be. I didn’t see a reason given for her termination. So I’ll go back and look and see if that’s there because it’s possible I could have missed it.

keftiu wrote:

Mark Stratton wrote:

Viratha Ravenheart wrote:

A good show of faith would be offering wrongly fired employees their old jobs back. With pay raises, bonuses, extended paid time off, and paid counseling to address the emotional trauma you've willingly and knowingly inflicted.

Well, that presumes one or more employees were “wrongly fired” and we have to no way to know why people were fired, nor do we have any right to know.

Given that the firing and subsequent quitting-in-solidarity was the first note of the #PaizoAccountability trend - the thing that led to the freelancer work stoppage and a major concern of the unionization effort - I don’t know why you would think this.

I must have missed the reason that Paizo terminated Sara Marie’s employment.

Edit: that sounds belligerent and I don’t mean it to be. I didn’t see a reason given for her termination. So I’ll go back and look and see if that’s there because it’s possible I could have missed it.

No, you did not miss it as no reason was given and no reason will ever be given.

People don't typically quit in protest if a termination was warranted, and especially don't say that it was a matter of morals.

No one could've thought that firing Sara would make Paizo recognizes an union. Tbh, I'd be pleased if I were her.

Sara Marie was fired without cause, lost a job she was passionate about, and won't get justice or recourse.

She's still a victim, even if it can't happen again post-union. She was not a willing sacrifice. Nor were any of the people who's victimization lead to this, Crystal, et al.

I'm delighted that the union can improve the future, but the victims of the past have no obligation to relief.

^No obligation to relief? Don't you mean no access to relief?

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

I'm restarting my subs today.

I thought you were new..

Of course I am. In honour of the original Gorbacz, I set up my subscriptions only to read the news about Sara and Diego 3 seconds later, which prompted me to cancel the subs and here we are.

My subs are back. You can't see them, but that's likely just some website glitch.

Also, it seems so - not my experience, but I heard from a friend of a friend - that if you've cancelled your subs and had the Legacy Pathfinder Advantage, you don't lose it.

Not sure what it all means as I never was a Legacy Subscriber who has been such since 2007, but I thought some of you might be in such a situation.

Also, it seems so - not my experience, but I heard from a friend of a friend - that if you've cancelled your subs and had the Legacy Pathfinder Advantage, you don't lose it.

Not sure what it all means as I never was a Legacy Subscriber who has been such since 2007, but I thought some of you might be in such a situation.

legacy pathfinder advantage is if you subscribed to AP's before 2e was released and continued your sub. You get 15% off all paizo products with it.

2e changed that you had to have like 4 or 5 subs to get that discount across the board. We were told that if we cancelled our AP after 2e was launched we would lose our 15% across the board discount.

I have not heard of anyone testing this.

Your tags may not appear until your first shipment for the new subs ships and is paid for. Otherwise, yup glitch.

Keeping to my word and started my first subscription. Willing to add more if the union's demands are met.

I feel like the toothless bag's statements went over Yoshua's head. I bet I could find the toothless bag's tags if I looked hard enough at something toothier

Well hopefully their union works out.

In my experience in unions however the results are very mixed and very biased to show favoritism to senior members with more years with a company.

Wages go up and people deemed not as necessary get laid off to pay for wage increases.

More positions are created and I imagine with Paizo hiring a fulltime HR person one or more people might get laid off to make room in budget.

I truly hope I'm wrong but after 25+ years in a heavily unionized industry I know full well the pitfalls and benefits of unionizing.

I've been kept on in jobs because of years served when they didn't need me as an additional supervisor because of a union. I would've rather them kept some of the young guys who needed the job more than me because I have very in-demand job skills and getting a new job isn't hard and usually ends up with pay increase or at the very least ends up being the same.