The Paris-based firm — greatest identified for its Murderer’s Creed franchise — issued an announcement Wednesday saying the transfer had nothing to do with a union drive that resulted in 60 staff becoming a member of the Canadian department of the Communications Employees of America.
The workplace was Ubisoft’s first to unionize in North America.
“The closure is linked to Ubisoft’s want for … cost-optimization,” the corporate’s assertion stated. “Ubisoft totally respects staff’ proper to unionize and has unionized groups globally.”
The corporate stated it has been trimming its operations for the previous two years, properly earlier than the union introduced in June {that a} majority of Ubisoft Halifax workers had agreed to file for union certification. On Dec. 18, the Nova Scotia Labour Board licensed the brand new native after 74 per cent of the workers voted in favour of the transfer.
As a part of CWA Canada Native 30111, they joined a unit that represents almost 120 sport employees at Bethesda Recreation Studios in Montreal, and workers on the Montreal Gazette newspaper.
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On the time, the newly unionized employees issued an announcement saying the union drive was in response to “industry-wide uncertainty, studio closures, layoffs and growing instability.”
The publicly traded firm’s inventory worth in Paris has fallen from greater than 100 euros in 2018 to six.10 euros on Wednesday.
CWA Canada issued an announcement Wednesday saying the timing of the Halifax shutdown raises robust questions for Ubisoft, noting that it’s illegal in Canada for a enterprise to shut as a result of its employees determine to unionize.
“Whereas we’re not saying that that is what occurred right here, we shall be demanding data from Ubisoft in regards to the cause for the sudden determination to shut,” the union’s assertion stated.
CWA Canada describes itself because the nation’s solely all-media union, representing 6,000 employees on the CBC, The Canadian Press, and newspapers, tech, digital media, video gaming and different firms coast to coast.
Amongst those that misplaced their jobs in Halifax had been producers, programmers, designers, artists, researchers and growth testers.
Nobody was obtainable for an interview at Ubisoft’s workplace in downtown Halifax, however an organization spokesperson confirmed that previously two years, the corporate has both closed or downsized a number of studios all over the world, together with these in London, San Francisco, Osaka in central Japan and Leamington, U.Ok.
The spokesperson stated the corporate, which employed greater than 17,000 individuals as of September, had reduce greater than 1,500 jobs within the earlier yr.
Based in 2010, the video video games studio in Halifax grew to become Ubisoft Halifax in 2015. Its workers had been the primary in Canada to concentrate on cellular, free-to-play video games. Most them supported a cellular sport generally known as Murderer’s Creed Riot, which launched in 2018.
The corporate’s largest manufacturing studio is in Montreal, nevertheless it additionally has studios in Toronto, Winnipeg, Quebec Metropolis, Sherbrooke, Que., and Saguenay, Que., the spokesperson stated, including that different Canadian workplaces have been affected by firm cutbacks through the previous two years.
In Could 2024, a Ubisoft Quebec supervisor stated the Montreal studio employed about 4,000 individuals.
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