Paizo Recognizes United Paizo Workers

Avoiders of Aristocracy,

Congratulations on the unionisation!

As our founding documents say:

We the People of Andoran, in Order to form a more perfect Union....

May your negotiations be productive and in the best interest of all involved.

Just dropping by to say: "Let us support Paizo and all the people who depend on it."

Well done Paizo.

I'm fully unversed on the subject of unions, 95% genuine question, 5% snark: is it normal in these circumstances to specifically use the phrase "voluntarily recognize?" I'm seeing the word "voluntary" stressed a lot, and it comes of as... not suspicious, just kind of peculiar. Is there an involuntary way to recognize a union?

Did you ever get this answered? Companies can fight it, force it to go to a big, formal vote, contest the vote, even file labor complaints against those trying to form the union. Look at everything happening with Amazon folks trying to form unions; the company fights it all the way, often even using undemocratic practices like threatening people's jobs or tampering with the actual ballots.

I'm a teacher, and I've seen it go both ways when the bargaining unit tried to expand who it covered. Counselors wanted into the unit and the district fought it for years even though several other nearby teacher units already included counselors. It finally went to the state Labor Relations Board and the LRB said, "yes" they could join. Another time, school psychologists waned in and the ditrict just said, "fine," and it happened quickly.

Voluntary recognition by the employer is a sign of good faith and willingness to work with employees and the union.

I find you can learn a lot about a company by seeing how they respond to an attempt by it's employees to unionize. I stopped buying my Pathfinder books from Amazon due to their aggressive union busting, and today decided to sub here. Thank You Paizo.

Removed a series of posts that questioned the union iconography. If you wish to discuss their choices, it would be best to do so with the UPW Organizing Committee. I also removed a long thread that discussed politics, which breaks Community Guidelines. Refocusing the discussion to Paizo's recognition of UPW.

Given how many trans people are both working on and consuming Pathfinder stuff, I highly doubt those who care about our rights are a “vocal minority.”

I appreciate you indicating you think they don’t matter, though. It’s charming to see someone so openly say they don’t care about us.

I didn't interpret this as "only a few people care about trans rights" so much as "only a few people follow news about this company enough to know and comment about a trans rights issue here". Unless the entire UPW dressed as kobolds and marched to Olympia to make their demands, the news about Paizo would never get out to the general public. Even if gamers are more online than the average person, plenty of them still just buy and play the games they want and never know anything about the companies beyond their products.

Just to be clear, I support trans right and I support this union. Still undecided about Paizo as a whole, but things at least seem to be moving in a positive direction (and this seems like a common position on these threads).

Removed a post that the series of replies to that post, as telling others what tone they should use on the forums is personally harassing. Please focus your commentary on Paizo and the United Paizo Workers union, which is the topic of this thread. Thank you!

The United Paizo Workers Announcement

This is fantastic news. True to my promise, Paizo, I have now purchased the hard cover of Pathfinder 2.0, and I plan on adding more books as my budget allows. Thank you for recognizing the union, thank you for being an example to other gaming companies, and thank you for the decades (!) of amazing experiences.

I've never felt so good about making an RPG purchase before. :)

As stated if you watch injustice and turn a blind eye to it you're not really neutral.

{. . .} Unless the entire UPW dressed as kobolds and marched to Olympia to make their demands, {. . .}

THIS I've got to see . . . .

There is no other mechanism to ensure labor safety in the United States labor context than unions. Period. Ring-wing ideologues have spent decades removing even those protections and spreading propaganda about unions and what they do. This is historical fact.

Businesses, broadly speaking, don't care about the wellbeing of their employees. Again: This is something you don't even have to try that hard to learn about.

So, when you say that you think there are other mechanisms to solve the problem of labor exploitation, that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the US labor context.

There is no other mechanism to ensure labor safety in the United States labor context than unions. Period. Ring-wing ideologues have spent decades removing even those protections and spreading propaganda about unions and what they do. This is historical fact.

Businesses, broadly speaking, don't care about the wellbeing of their employees. Again: This is something you don't even have to try that hard to learn about.

So, when you say that you think there are other mechanisms to solve the problem of labor exploitation, that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the US labor context.

There are other choices like forming a CO-OP The people who benefit from the products or services of a cooperative business own the cooperative business. There are all so Worker-owned CO-OPs

Saedar wrote:

There is no other mechanism to ensure labor safety in the United States labor context than unions. Period. Ring-wing ideologues have spent decades removing even those protections and spreading propaganda about unions and what they do. This is historical fact.

Businesses, broadly speaking, don't care about the wellbeing of their employees. Again: This is something you don't even have to try that hard to learn about.

So, when you say that you think there are other mechanisms to solve the problem of labor exploitation, that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the US labor context.

There are other choices like forming a CO-OP The people who benefit from the products or services of a cooperative business own the cooperative business.

Or a worker owned co-op.

That's not something that can be applied to an existing business even as easily as unionization. Unionization is the only practical model for most employees and even that is often incredibly difficult.

A simple strike with a list of demands is also relatively easy to organize.

Humbly,
Yawar

A simple strike with a list of demands is also relatively easy to organize.

Humbly,
Yawar

Striking without a formal collective organization (union) just gets everyone fired and replaced. That's why the National Labor Relations Act exists. To formalize and protect employees from being harmed by the exact thing you are suggesting.

A simple strike with a list of demands is also relatively easy to organize.

Humbly,
Yawar

They live in a "fire at-will" state, so Paizo could then just lay off the key people behind that strike. No question asked, no legal protection.

Ashbourne wrote:

Saedar wrote:

There is no other mechanism to ensure labor safety in the United States labor context than unions. Period. Ring-wing ideologues have spent decades removing even those protections and spreading propaganda about unions and what they do. This is historical fact.

Businesses, broadly speaking, don't care about the wellbeing of their employees. Again: This is something you don't even have to try that hard to learn about.

So, when you say that you think there are other mechanisms to solve the problem of labor exploitation, that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the US labor context.

There are other choices like forming a CO-OP The people who benefit from the products or services of a cooperative business own the cooperative business.

Or a worker owned co-op.

That's not something that can be applied to an existing business even as easily as unionization. Unionization is the only practical model for most employees and even that is often incredibly difficult.

So unions are the status quo for solving labor problems? Don't get me wrong I'm a union member myself and totally support UPW union as well. Unions help but they haven't cured labor problems. If you don't have other ideas on the table you won't find one.

No one has claimed that unions solve all problems or are naturally free of the corruption that can occur in any human organization. They are "merely" the strongest tool that employees have, especially in the US.

Wow, sucks to live in there, then. One question, why wouldn't Paizo fire the employees organizing the union in that case? Or, is there a provision against that type of union busting?

My problem with unions is that what workers rights they defend are already enshrined in law and, while they may have valid reasons for forming, like every social or collective movement without a define clear goal, almost inevitably become unnecessary fat more interested in perpetuating its own existence than improving anything.

Humbly,
Yawar

Yes, that's why unions exist. Even in states that are "at-will" you can't fire union members without cause, and that's why it was important to form one.