Sega workers form largest multi-department video game union in the US

Workers at Sega of America, representing multiple departments, have voted to form a union. With 91 employees voting yes out of a total number of 212 eligible employees, the Allied Employees Guild Improving SEGA (also known as AEGIS-CWA) becomes the fifth video game union in the United States and its largest multi-department video game union.

“We are overjoyed to celebrate our union election win as members of AEGIS-CWA,” Ángel Gómez, a translator for Sega, said in a press release announcing the news. “Now, through our union, we’ll be able to protect the parts of our jobs we love, and strengthen the benefits, pay, and job stability available to all workers.”

The AEGIS union drive was announced in April but was a year in the works for the employees at Sega of America’s Burbank and Irvine, California, offices.

AEGIS-CWA is the US’s fifth video game union overall, joining groups at Raven Software, Blizzard Albany, ZeniMax, and VR / AR game developer Tender Claws. In addition to being among the first video game unions in the country, AEGIS-CWA will also represent workers across a multitude of departments including brand marketing, games as a service, localization, marketing services, product development operations, product development, sales, quality assurance teams, and more. With so many participating departments, AEGIS-CWA has become the largest multi-discipline video game union in the United States.

AEGIS-CWA is unique in that it represents worker interests across a broad range of disciplines. All of the video game unions in the US so far have been contained within QA, a department with a reputation across the industry of underpaying and overworking its workers. There’s hope, then, that AEGIS-CWA and Tender Claws Human Union (the first multi-department video game union that was established in July 2022) will lead to more inter-departmental unionization efforts the way Raven Software formally kicked off union drives at Activision Blizzard.

The Verge has reached out to Sega for comment.

Update July 10th, 3:18PM ET: Added comment from AEGIS-CWA member.