|
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
NOTE: I moved this post to the latest page because it was the last reply on the previous page and those posts often get overlooked, in light of that I'm moving it to this new page for better visibility. Apologies if this is less than ideal forum etiquette but the conversation, I feel, is probably the MOST insightful and clarifying bit of media to date on the subject.
Since it does not seem like it has been linked or mentioned here yet, I want to express the massive amount of respect for the extremely graceful and remarkably well-spoken discussion had by Mike, Jason, and Owen on the BAMF podcast that helped make far more clear the actual realities of what is going on and the next steps that cuts out much of the conflicting discussion and misinformation that's floating around.
The video has a remarkably low number of views so far, maybe due to the length of it but regardless, I highly recommend watching the video to anyone seeking context and information on what is going on and specifically regarding the inevitable silence that is going to follow as the executive Paizo team takes THEIR next steps in this process and calls for patience.
As they noted this is all going to take time, red tape, and discussions with legal experts in order to sort out. Everything I've heard so far seems to point toward them taking a professional and measured approach to doing this the proper way instead of trying to rush through the process.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe Paizo should restructure...
I think there are a lot of ways Paizo could improve and could have improved prior to recent events, but here's the thing that most of our suggestions seem to miss—we assume that Paizo's executive team WANTS to improve. They may dismiss most of the complaints as exaggeration, miscommunication, or outright fabrications. That could be interpreted by their apparent lack of progress to date.
Generally speaking, I expect that the executive team would say they stand by most of their decisions. I have said numerous times over the years, Paizo generally demonstrates either the inability or the unwillingness to enact corrective behavior/action to problems that arise. One look at their antiquated website exemplifies that. Personally, I don't see recent events to be anything other than a continuation of their ongoing problematic environment. It doesn't matter if the staff forms a union or the freelancers strike, etc. as long as the company is owned by Lisa/Vic it is going to perpetuate the attitudes that so many find reprehensible.
The one thing Paizo does right is find and employ some of the finest creative minds in the industry. Its the dichotomy that has allowed them to survive and thrive in a very competitive industry despite their horrible operational environment.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I might not be an active poster on the forums (even if I've been a lurker for a long while), but I (inspired by comments Owen KC Stephens made on the podcast that Themetricsystem so helpfully linked above, which I highly recommend giving a listen to!) just wanted to step in and add my support for all the workers at Paizo and for UPW!
Paizo's books and APs have been an essential part of so many great memories for me and my friends (and a way that I've made many of my friends) over the years- and those products would be nothing without the time and passion and talent of so many writers, developers, artists, and other creators- as well as everyone who less visibly contributes from the warehouse workers to the customer service team, to all the people in roles a layperson like myself isn't even aware exist (and I'm sure are vital).
I hope all the employees here at Paizo understand how appreciated their work is by the community, and it should go without saying (but thankfully the rest of the community has been saying it pretty firmly) that you all deserve to be treated well and safely, paid fairly for the incredible work you all do, and have a seat at the table in guiding the company that wouldn't be where it is today without you.
Also, an extra thank you to all the Freelancers for throwing in their support for the unionization efforts- that's an incredible show of solidarity, and I greatly suspect it'll end up being the thing that helps push this all to succeeding. So thank you, so much!
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
As they noted this is all going to take time, red tape, and discussions with legal experts in order to sort out. Everything I've heard so far seems to point toward them taking a professional and measured approach to doing this the proper way instead of trying to rush through the process.
Was that ever really in question? From the jump they indicated they had the logistical support of an established union and were already comporting themselves professionally and not acting actively antagonistic towards the execs.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think Paizo management is dedicated to staying in business and making that business as profitable as possible.
Fighting the union beyond any necessary legal due diligence would be the surest way they could fail at that goal.
I see only two factors that might lead them down that suicidal path:
1) Since the unionization effort has been going on for some time, they may be biased by any missteps in its early phases.
2) Paizo is a small company, with few employees and even fewer managers. Individual stupidity, if it is a factor here, becomes more likely to create problems in that situation.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
NOTE: I moved this post to the latest page because it was the last reply on the previous page and those posts often get overlooked, in light of that I'm moving it to this new page for better visibility. Apologies if this is less than ideal forum etiquette but the conversation, I feel, is probably the MOST insightful and clarifying bit of media to date on the subject.
Good idea, I think.
Fwiw, BAMF usually release these kinds of things as podcasts, so hopefully that.l be out soon too.
I can’t watch videos for information, so I’m hanging out for this.
(Owen and Jake had a fantastic discussion on the new edition of D&D recently too).
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I add my support for the UPW!
I will say that we al should show a modicum of patience as to Paizo ownership and management announcing recognition of the Union. It will take some time to organize and have the meetings and legal consultations necessary to formally respond to the request.
My guess is that whether they voice it or not, even though they can't be and won't be part of the union, many of the Paizo employees in management support Unionization. All employees will benefit.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just here to offer support for the UPW.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition is my favorite role-playing game. The workers at Paizo deserve more control over their working conditions.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The executive team is 5 people. Lisa and Vic are co owners of the company. Jeff is the company president. Erik is the publisher and also CCO (chief creative officer). The CFO (chief financial officer) is also an executive. Paizo has had a temporary one named David since May 2020. He will be departing any day now while the new one, Ryan, takes over. Ryan will also be in charge of HR (when the last HR person left in January they never replaced them because David was temporary and they wanted any new CFO they got around to hiring to be involved with the hiring process since they would be in charge of that person). He will also be the new CTO (chief technical officer).
Thank you for pointing out just how small this company is. Far smaller than I ever believed/conceived. This makes some of the more awful things that have happened more worrisome, and I hope that competent HR along with whomever else is hired in accordance with union wishes goes a long way to solve the various problems that have come up.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I support the UPW.
For what little it's worth, I've been a subscriber for almost 10 years, despite the ridiculous shipping costs and delays to New Zealand. I fully support Paizo (recognising that Paizo is its employees) and hope that the executives choose to recognise the union, and address the poor pay and other issues raised in recent weeks.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have supported Paizo and their games since they lost the Dragon gig, I was a subscriber at the start as I wanted to do what I could to help them get going and succeed.
I own an awful lot of their product as actual books or more recently pdfs, I strangely (I live in the UK) know a lot of the developers, writers and editors and management by sight from many twitch and youtube streams.
I have admired the inclusiveness of the content, role-players have struck me over the 40 years I have been playing as an oddly reactionary bunch, considering how we were marginalised as nerds and geeks (which wasn't a positive term at the time) in the past. I have enjoyed the diversity of the characters in the adventure paths and setting even if I am a middle aged straight white guy. I truly believe Paizo has some of the best ttrpg developers, editors and writers in the business and I hope management realise what their greatest asset is (my experience with businesses is that isn't always the case).
So Paizo, don't ruin the fun, do the right thing, Recognise United Paizo Workers, it really is the only sensible option, and, as I said, it is the right thing to do. Ask yourselves why they felt the need to do this, and why I am writing this....and to the people who work on the games I love, thankyou.
Paizo is a pretty small company. Not sure what a union would do at Paizo. Are they even a high enough margin business to allow for a union putting upward pressure on wages and making labor costs less flexible? It seems like unionizing Paizo would push them to outsource more work to avoid the union issues.
The RPG publishing business from what I understand is a very low margin business. It requires very flexible use of labor due to the up and down nature of their products. Seems like it would make them less competitive as a business and damage their ability to operate against non-union competitors.
Or is Wizards of the Coast union too?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In general, I support unions.
I'm not sure how a company like Paizo would unionize.
Generally, unions specialize. So all the employees would not be under one umbrella. In companies, there might be a union for janitors, security guards, office workers, engineers, steelworkers, and the like. Boeing has several unions representing different groups.
I'm not sure what type of union would cover all of Paizo's employees. People seem to think unionizing as easy as voting one in and that it covers everyone. It's not really that easy.
Unions tend to specialize. If a company is small, they might feel the number of employees are sufficient to support unionization, especially if the employees fall under a few different unions.
Would this be a game designers union where writers, artists, and other types of game designers fall under?
Not sure what union would represent game designers? Does one exist? How would this work?
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
Paizo is a pretty small company. Not sure what a union would do at Paizo.
Prevent large scale safety issues from occurring that tend to the plague the company because of management's lack of desire to ever do anything in regards to said issues.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think Paizo management is dedicated to staying in business and making that business as profitable as possible.
Fighting the union beyond any necessary legal due diligence would be the surest way they could fail at that goal.
I see only two factors that might lead them down that suicidal path:
1) Since the unionization effort has been going on for some time, they may be biased by any missteps in its early phases.
2) Paizo is a small company, with few employees and even fewer managers. Individual stupidity, if it is a factor here, becomes more likely to create problems in that situation.
I agree. Refusing to recognize the union would be kinda off brand for how they like to portray themselves as a company, and how they generally seem to be overall given 80% of complaints that come out are framed as Paizo aren't villains, there's just problems fairly common in companies and the people leveling them for the most part want them to be fixed and Paizo to succeed. Even Sara, who was controversially fired has a distinct vibes of this, going so far as to actually come to Paizo's defense on some accusations and actively showing up to the podcast supporting the good vibes. The unionization is ever super amicable and pushing forward a message of this being as much about helping out Paizo as protecting the workers and explaining they believe many of the working condition issues are from management being as over-taxed as some of the workers.
Throughout the scandal Paizo employees (even middle managers) have been pretty open (way moreso than most companies tend to be at least) after they had time to gather their thoughts, they encouraged the various hashtags, and more with seemingly little fear of any retaliation.
Plus think of the good press and good faith recognizing the union would get. I'm no corporate guru and I imagine recognizing a union comes with a few risks and concessions I don't know about. However, there's a work stoppage among freelancers that accepting would fix, the immediate demands are pretty mild relatively, and the union is actively volunteering to help do some stuff the company would normally need to pay for or force on someone. Aside from stuff on the backend I don't know about there's so much more to be gained from accepting this good vibes union than refusing. Refusing would be borderline hitting the self-destruct button.
That being said, I highly respect the union's call for patience and understanding given how intensely some on this forum were shouting down the initial corporate statement when the scandals first came out. There's a process to things in business and there's reasons for most of those processes. We don't need to metaphorically pin them to a stake and light them up.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
NOTE: I moved this post to the latest page because it was the last reply on the previous page and those posts often get overlooked, in light of that I'm moving it to this new page for better visibility. Apologies if this is less than ideal forum etiquette but the conversation, I feel, is probably the MOST insightful and clarifying bit of media to date on the subject.
Thanks for the link themetricsystem.
Watched the whole thing. Jason Tondro is a remarkably generous speaker with a lot of passion for both his creative work and the wellbeing of his colleagues. I have no knowledge outside of this (and perhaps vaguely knowing he did work on Live Free or Die) but have profound respect for the extra, volunteer work he is doing on top of his paid work to ensure he and his fellow employees are treated well. More power to you and the UPW Jason.
Owen makes a lot of really great points, is insightful, moderate and has a wealth of experience. His points about managers needing to have have not just experience, but tacit deep, good experience of the work those under them are doing were really well made. He makes his biases clear and is not afraid to give his direct opinion.
|
| 19 people marked this as a favorite. |
Paizo is a pretty small company. Not sure what a union would do at Paizo. Are they even a high enough margin business to allow for a union putting upward pressure on wages and making labor costs less flexible? It seems like unionizing Paizo would push them to outsource more work to avoid the union issues.
The RPG publishing business from what I understand is a very low margin business. It requires very flexible use of labor due to the up and down nature of their products. Seems like it would make them less competitive as a business and damage their ability to operate against non-union competitors.
Or is Wizards of the Coast union too?
You understand that wages are just one thing that Unions typically work towards right? Unfair hiring and firing practices is another. Safe working conditions is yet another. UPW doesn't want Paizo to fail, they're not going to demand unreasonable wage increases, but they will get to take a look at the books and see what is actually a reasonable increase to ask for, especially since so many of the staff are living below what is considered a liveable wage in the area.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
You understand that wages are just one thing that Unions typically work towards right? Unfair hiring and firing practices is another. Safe working conditions is yet another. UPW doesn't want Paizo to fail, they're not going to demand unreasonable wage increases, but they will get to take a look at the books and see what is actually a reasonable increase to ask for, especially since so many of the staff are living below what is considered a liveable wage in the area.Paizo is a pretty small company. Not sure what a union would do at Paizo. Are they even a high enough margin business to allow for a union putting upward pressure on wages and making labor costs less flexible? It seems like unionizing Paizo would push them to outsource more work to avoid the union issues.
The RPG publishing business from what I understand is a very low margin business. It requires very flexible use of labor due to the up and down nature of their products. Seems like it would make them less competitive as a business and damage their ability to operate against non-union competitors.
Or is Wizards of the Coast union too?
They can also push for expanded work-from-home allowances so employees might be able to pursue housing in places where it is more affordable but not within easy commute of the offices.
|
|
| 16 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not sure what union would represent game designers? Does one exist? How would this work?
Uh, read what the union says? Follow the links in the original post? Its not some hypothetical thing, there IS an actual organization right now that has something like 70% of eligible paizo employees supporting it.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
they will get to take a look at the books and see what is actually a reasonable increase to ask for
Not necessarily. It depends on what Paizo does. If they agree to the wage demands of the union or just flat refuse the wage demands without using financials as a basis, they may not be granted access to the company financials. Organizing a union does not automatically give you access to a private company's ledger.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Can't address the post as a whole, but if you haven't already seen it here's what the union would do.Paizo is a pretty small company. Not sure what a union would do at Paizo. Are they even a high enough margin business to allow for a union putting upward pressure on wages and making labor costs less flexible? It seems like unionizing Paizo would push them to outsource more work to avoid the union issues.
The RPG publishing business from what I understand is a very low margin business. It requires very flexible use of labor due to the up and down nature of their products. Seems like it would make them less competitive as a business and damage their ability to operate against non-union competitors.
Or is Wizards of the Coast union too?
Beginning September 16th, a united bloc of approximately 40 Paizo freelance writers, game designers, and adventure authors announced to management they would be refusing new contracts and in some cases withholding current work until improvements were made for employees. Demands included Paizo fill an HR position that was allowed to sit vacant and leave Paizo without HR for months; that non-warehouse staff be permitted to continue working from home during the pandemic, and that all non-warehouse staff are afforded the option to work remotely from outside Washington if they choose; that Paizo be fully transparent about all salary information; and that Paizo bring a full-time diversity consultant onto staffNot a call to raise wages currently, a call to raise wage transparency, allow safer and more equitable working conditions, and employ enough staff to handle Paizo's work load.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Paizo books and games have meant so much to me and my players. I stand in solidarity with the Paizo Workers Union. Executive team, please voluntarily recognize the union!!!
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
(Also forgot to mention that the BAMF podcast also explores the “freelancer concerted action” where 40 freelancers stopped work to protest allegations and unfair work practices at Paizo - these freelancers have stipulated that a contingency of their return to work is recognition of the PWU by Paizo…)
(Someone correct me if the above is innaccurate)
That 40 disparate and individual freelancers could band together to a) reach consensus about anything, and b) hold strong is both a recognition of the severity of the situation and the need for change at Paizo. Much respect for this coalition of freelancers!
|
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
That 40 disparate and individual freelancers could band together to a) reach consensus about anything, and b) hold strong is both a recognition of the severity of the situation and the need for change at Paizo. Much respect for this coalition of freelancers!
Not only Paizo either. I hope this leads to changes through out the creative gaming sphere. Americans haven't been this fed up in decades.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Earlier today had a wonderful interview with two Paizo employees from the union who both had great explanations of what the union could do for Paizo workers (not only the writers but CMs, engineers, and warehouse workers) as well as for freelancers.
They also had a great list of things that community members, players, and GMs can do to help support the union. Here's the link to the discussion.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
NOTE: I moved this post to the latest page because it was the last reply on the previous page and those posts often get overlooked, in light of that I'm moving it to this new page for better visibility. Apologies if this is less than ideal forum etiquette but the conversation, I feel, is probably the MOST insightful and clarifying bit of media to date on the subject.
Good idea, I think.
Fwiw, BAMF usually release these kinds of things as podcasts, so hopefully that.l be out soon too.
I can’t watch videos for information, so I’m hanging out for this.(Owen and Jake had a fantastic discussion on the new edition of D&D recently too).
The Paizo workers twitter has been doing a good job of sharing the interviews that some of it's members have been doing. Their twitter is: https://twitter.com/PaizoWorkers
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Looking forward to buying union-produced products from Paizo, I like the idea that my union wages would be going to help another union.
Labor solidarity, baby. We love to see it.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just sent an email to customer service to cancel all my subscriptions and right after sent a follow up email to Jeff Alvarez, Lisa Stevens and Erik Mona letting them know.
Hopefully, they will realize they stand to lose many long-time fans and customers like myself (yeah, I waited on that super-long line at Gen Con back when Pathfinder 1st edition was released) unless they recognize the union.
Wishing all the employees of Paizo the best, and I hope my actions will help make a difference.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I support UPW.
|
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I fully support UPW.
I'm a former PFS Venture Officer.
I'm a former member of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers. Where, I currently work, I'm not in a union per se but we represent union members and there's pro labor posters in the office. I have a picture of Mother Jones by my desk.
Like I said before, I'm sure Lisa and Erik will do what's right.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The Union would look at hiring practices and working conditions. But enforcement would be done by the EEOC and Labor Board. To access those agencies you do not need a Union
Also Paizo will not go out of business because they do not support the Union. The majority of subscribers have not posted here or about this. Also none of the distributors have said anything. So even if everyone who posted in this thread stopped all their subscriptions. Paizo would not go out of business.
The reason I feel they should recognize the Union is employees who are comfortable and happy at work are more engaged and productive employees. Based on the list of Paizo staff at various levels there are concerns about the work place. Recognizes the Union can be a good first step in helping the Paizo staff be more engaged and happy at work.
It is for this reason among others I hope the Union is recognized.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
My guess is that me. Even if it is more than people who post here. Most have not canceled yet. Also the bulk of their sales probably goes through Amazon who if they have said anything (which I doubt) please post the link. So even if everyone saying they are going to cancel on Twitter does. They will still not go out of business. Also I do not know of any other distributors that have said anything about it. We are also assuming that those on Twitter are the majority of the subscribers. I am not sure they are. So yes I am comfortable in saying Paizo will not go out of business if they do not recognize the Union.
However, as a company Paizo should want happy and engaged staff. This is why they should recognize the Union. Some customers will be happy with them recognizing the Union some will not be. Ultimately the goal should be happy engaged staff who will be more productive and have better products. Which will lead to happier customers.