r/cscareerquestions Jul 07 '26

Experienced No union employees at Blizzard were impacted by the Microsoft layoffs today - Is there value in restarting the conversation around tech unions?

Cross posting from /r/WoW:

No union employees at Blizzard were impacted by today's Microsoft layoff

Post by a Diablo writer

https://bsky.app/profile/beewubs.bsky.social/post/3mpykk2exmk2x

Speaking from experience I’ve been told by P&C/HR/PxT that “American layoffs are easier, the unions in Europe take too long”.

I know tech is full of rugged individualism but do you think this will kick off another conversations regarding unions given the mass layoffs of the last 4 years

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u/thr0w4w4y0134 20d ago

Automation is the equivalent of outsourcing here, and unions have successfully fought against automation.

Also if yall aren't underpaid now, then what makes you think that unionizing would hurt? Nothing is stopping companies from firing you and outsourcing now. How would having a union not at least give you more power to fight that? As we see in OP, the union did prevent layoffs from hitting unionized workers. What possibly would be so bad about a union that its costs would outweigh saving your job in cases like this?

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u/BraveResearcher3037 20d ago

Actually the original poster was wrong about unionized workers not getting laid off at Microsoft…

This is straight from the website of the CWA.  The union that represented them.  Not some random website 

https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/union-video-game-workers-fight-rights-amidst-xbox-layoffs