C ✊ UVW-CWA

I've reposted many posts made by folks who were recently laid off from Heart Machine, but here is a thread that highlights them all.

I am also including folks who were previously laid off & are still looking for work. I will be linking their Bsky posts, as well as LinkedIn.

Please, share this. 🖤

Make EA Better for Workers and Gamers - Not Billionaires A group of investors - including the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners - wants to buy Electronic Arts, concentrating even more power and wealth into the hands...

Sign our petition urging the US FTC to watch this deal closely. If left unchecked, this deal spells disaster for EA's workers and players alike, but there's still time to do something about it!

actionnetwork.org/petitions/ma...

United Videogame Workers-CWA Statement on Proposed Electronic Arts Buyout October 15, 2025 NATIONWIDE — The following statement is from United Videogame Workers-CWA Local 9433. The recently proposed acquisition of Electronic Arts (EA) by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia and private equity firms, including Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, will further concentrate power and wealth into the hands of a few gatekeepers while doing nothing to address the concerns of players and workers. EA is not a struggling company. With annual revenues reaching $7.5 billion and $1 billion in profit each year, EA is one of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world. EA’s success has been entirely driven by tens of thousands of EA workers whose creativity, skill, and innovation made EA worth buying in the first place. Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardized as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed. We are particularly worried about the future of our studios that are arbitrarily deemed ‘less profitable’ but whose contributions to the video game industry define EA’s reputation. Since 2022, an estimated 40,000 video game workers have already lost their jobs due to mass layoffs at AAA and indie studios alike. As reported in Game Developer, this deal will result in EA having to finance nearly $20 billion in debt—who will be spared, which corners will executives cut, and what studios will be sacrificed in order for that to happen? If jobs are lost or studios are closed due to this deal, that would be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors’ pockets—not to strengthen the company. Every time private equity or billionaire investors take a studio private, workers lose visibility, transparency, and power. Decisions that shape our jobs, our art, and our futures are made behind closed doors by executives who have never written a line of code, built worlds, or supported live services. We are…

Please read our statement regarding the proposed Electronic Arts buyout. We refuse to let corporate greed decide the future of our industry.

cwa-union.org/news/release...

Fanart of Portland's favorite frog fighting fascists
#pixelart #portlandwarzone #amphiba

Activision Blizzard’s Platform and Technology Workers Form Union with Communications Workers of America Today, nearly 400 video game workers within Blizzard’s Platform & Technology department have voted strongly in favor of union representation with CWA.

Today, nearly 400 workers with Blizzard's Platform & Technology department have formed a union with @cwaunion.bsky.social!

“We are forming a union to hold leadership accountable and to ensure that we can focus on building amazing experiences for the gaming community.” 💪

With unbreakable determination..... Hundreds of thousands return to Gaza city after being forcefully evacuated from it.

Open Letter to the Executive Leadership at Build A Rocket Boy

We stand in solidarity with employees and ex-employees at Build a Rocket Boy as they file legal claims through our union and publish an open letter, condemning the way in which they’ve been mistreated and discarded by the studio’s millionaire executives.

www.gameworkers.co.uk/barb-open-le...

The best time to unionize was ten years ago. The second best time is right now.

NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites The style is unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war.Our analysis of 43 official IDF videos found recycled 3D environments, spatial inaccuracies, and assets lifted from unrelated artists and institutions.We traced over 30 unique assets to Washington-based 3D creator Ian Hubert, who makes bespoke models created for his sci-fi project Dynamo Dream, available to his Patreon subscribers. Models of parking lots, antennas, + pipes were repurposed as Hamas and Iranian military sites

@evanhill · 11m Fascinating work here tracing how the IDF recycled 3D assets from a cyberpunk sci-fi art project, the Scottish Maritime Museum and elsewhere to populate its widely-seen models of supposed enemy locations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. One of the most infamous, the alleged underground Hamas command center at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, used to justify an unprecedented assault on the biggest medical center in Gaza, was actually an animation the IDF had used the previous year, saying at the time it was a tunnel beneath a UN school.

Losing my mind and what look like video game assets but instead were used to justify war crimes and genocide in the real world

The last few hours of googling have convinced me that someone reallllly needs to write an article on Engels' "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State," patriarchy, and Crusader Kings II/III.

2 million rally in Italy for Gaza as general strike halts key services Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.

Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.

🙌The first recognised union for game devs in the UK! 🙌

Workers at ZAUM now have a say on their pay and conditions at work with the support of the @iwgbunion.bsky.social

Work in games in the UK? Join our union today: iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game...

After layoffs, cancellations, and controversy, ZA/UM UK staff unionise as the Workers' Alliance "We like being here. We want to continue being here. So let's try and get a seat at the table in the big management meetings."

The ZA/UM Workers' Alliance - a new union set up to represent a subset of UK-based employees at the company - discusses how it wants to help staff feel safe and comfortable in their jobs

www.gamesindustry.biz/after-layoff...

There are spontaneous protests throughout Italy for Gaza happening right now. This is in addition to calls for a general strike this Friday by the country's largest union (see above in thread)

Here Napoli/Naples

www.instagram.com/reel/DPRlQP9...

BREAKING: Union in Italy has announced a general strike on October 3, as per their promise if the Gaza flotilla was attacked, as it has been now.

Screenshot of a statement on X by David Adler, the text reads: "Dear friends, I fear this will be the final letter that I write to you from the Global Sumud Flotilla — now just 120 NM from the shores of Gaza. Last night, several Israeli naval ships menaced our convoy. They attacked our vessels, intimidated our crew, and disabled our communications. We recognize these tactics from previous flotilla missions. We know that they are the precursor to what we have long feared: illegal Israeli abduction in international waters. As I write this, we are preparing ourselves for such an imminent attack. We know the procedures. We know the protocols. When they board our boats, we will not resist. We are ready. From our cell phones and our CCTVs, we will do our best to document everything. We will transmit it to the world. And we will rely on you to spread the word about this criminal attack. But before they intercept us, I want to say something — corny, I know; copium, possibly — but that I truly believe nonetheless: that even if we do not complete our mission this time, the Sumud flotilla has already achieved so much."

"The flotilla has rallied the world's attention once again to the suffering of the people of Gaza. The flotilla has joined land and sea in the mass mobilization of millions. And the flotilla has forced reluctant states into active confrontation with the illegal siege that has starved the people of Palestine and robbed them of their right to self-determination. Above all, the flotilla has proven that ordinary people – doctors, fishermen, students, journalists, lawyers, clergymen, and retirees from 44 countries – can not only unite around a sense moral outrage, but also take matters into their own hands to do something about it. We set sail from Barcelona not just as a symbolic gesture of solidarity — but as an act of construction: to build a permanent humanitarian corridor to reach the people of Gaza by sea. And while our boats may be intercepted, that idea cannot detained. The demand for a corridor will outlive this flotilla; a new fleet of ships is already on its way from Corsica to break the siege. Our movement only grows. When Israeli authorities forcibly board our vessels in the coming hours, please know that they will be committing an act of piracy. They will be violating the sovereignty of the seas. They will be obstructing a peaceful humanitarian mission witnessed by the entire world. Let them try to justify it. Let them explain to the international community why our humble effort to feed the starving people of Gaza represents some threat to their national security. No one will believe them. The Hasbara simply doesn’t hit anymore."

"From here on the Ohwayla, I can say that we are not afraid of interception, interrogation, or incarceration. What we fear is a world where such abductions become routine. Where humanitarians are treated as criminals. Where bringing food to hungry children is called terrorism. So when you hear that we have been intercepted – and you will hear it, within the coming hours – please do not fear for us. We knew what we were sailing toward. We made this choice with open eyes and full hearts. Instead, let’s raise hell! 😈 Make those Insta posts, yell at our pathetic representatives, and join our demand for a corridor now. Not as a dream, but as a concrete policy. The infrastructure we could not complete, states must build. The siege we came to break, they must end once and for all. If there is one thing I have learned on this journey, surrounded by these extraordinary new friends from every corner of the earth, it is this: that collective action really is a beautiful thing. When we refuse to accept the unacceptable, when we put our bodies between injustice and its victims, we really can alter the course of history, however modestly. I guess more than anything, I want to thank you all for your support, your love, and your company on this mission. I hope it is not too long before I see you on the other side. Yours with love, David"

A statement by David Adler from the Sumud flotilla.
"collective action really is a beautiful thing. When we refuse to accept the unacceptable, when we put our bodies between injustice and its victims, we really can alter the course of history, however modestly."

🎥 “We are currently being intercepted by the Israeli occupation forces in international waters.”

Yasemin Acar, Global Sumud Flotilla steering committee member, has reported that the Israeli military is intercepting Alma, the main boat of the Flotilla, 145 nautical miles away from the shores of Gaza

Kickstarter United Seattle Strike Rally Our union has voted to STRIKE! We are fighting for a 32 hour work, livable wage for all workers, and protections against AI. Join us! Thursday, 10/2 @ 6

Kickstarter United has voted to STRIKE! We are fighting for a 32 hour work week, livable wage for all workers, and protections against AI. Our Seattle members are organizing a rally alongside OPEIU 8. Join us on Thursday in Cal Anderson Park! forms.gle/udwphKvnZDVG...

Meanwhile a soft zionist colleague told me that she does not have the bandwidth to care about the genocide done on her name because she is too busy with her own children and their drama. One of the drama was her child refusing to brush her hair

It's pretty wild to me that investigators have uncovered that anti-trans campaigns are largely funded by the fossil fuel industry, and that the presumed motivations are pretty directly to redirect the public conversation away from climate change... and that this isn't bigger news.

this is what fascism is

Imagine this: we have socialism and a planned economy. A new technology is invented that automates a ton including your job. No worries. You get paid to get retrained in a new field and you can keep living in your apartment cause you’re not charged to live there. All is fine.

Flyer that reads: "Queer Organizing 101: Building Skills to Make Change as Marginalized Game Workers" with QGCon and UVW-CWA logos at the bottom.

UVW-CWA will be at the Queerness and Games Conference this weekend! ✊🌈

This Saturday, our worker-organizers will be running the workshop "Queer Organizing 101: Building Skills to Make Change as Marginalized Game Workers."

We hope to see you there! #QGCon

Australian doctor in Gaza: "[The Israelis] are trying all types of weapons on these people... They bomb families at the beach, so families with the kids, moms, dads, aunties & uncles, they all arrive in pieces. And you don't know whose hand is this and whose leg is this. It's kind of a horror movie"

Excerpt from the linked article. The text reads "Across all measures, the study controls for the influence of other factors that may influence inequality and poverty, GHG and TPM emissions, and mortality. In this way, the authors are able to single out the influence that unionization has. As they conclude, 'The evidence presented here suggests that when unionization rates are higher in Canadian provinces, the environment is cleaner, inequality is lower, and health is better.'"

👀👀👀
www.readthemaple.com/unions-impro...

AWU members hold a press conference outside google in nyc

HAPPENING NOW: Alphabet Workers Union members are outside of the Google offices in NYC speaking out against the Trump administration’s H-1B visa proclamation!

Tune in: www.facebook.com/AlphabetWork...

The New York Times What Will China's Green-Tech Ambitions Cost the World? 3 days ago

We are going to avoid worst case climate projections because of them…but at what cost?

We highly recommend attending the Queer Organizing 101 workshop by @videogameworkers.bsky.social that same afternoon at 4pm, an excellent hands-on followup to the topics we'll be discussing!

QGCon is coming in just over a week! Come to our talk GAY PEOPLE UNIONIZE - WHY NOW, WHY YOU on Saturday 26th at 2pm in the auditorium to learn about why you (gay) should unionize, now! bsky.app/profile/qgco...

La conférence QGCon arrive! Venez voir notre présentation (en anglais) GAY PEOPLE UNIONIZE - WHY NOW, WHY YOU samedi 26 à 14h dans l'auditorium pour apprendre pourquoi les travailleureuses queer doivent se lancer dans l'aventure syndicale dès maintenant! bsky.app/profile/qgco...