In April, United Wizards of the Coast announced their intention to unionize. The developers behind Magic: The Gathering – Arena overwhelmingly voted their interest in forming a union, United Wizards of the Coast – CWA (UWOTC). Now, the staff have officially voted for the union.
The National Labor Relations Board website shows that, out of a total of 102 eligible voters, 79 votes were cast in favor of unionization, that leaves 16 against.
Today is a momentous day for the workers of Arena! After months of planning, waiting and organizing, our dream is finally a reality; the votes have been counted, and our union of UWOTC-CWA has been officially elected.
The USWOTC asked the Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro management to voluntarily recognize the union by International Workers Day (May Day) which took place on May 1, 2026. That did not happen, and instead there were regular reports of WotC discouraging the formation of the union.
In their announcement, the union said they are negotiating for:
Sustainable Workload: Employees’ experiences with “crunch” (intense, mandatory unpaid overtime) to meet deadlines vary widely by team and project, with some teams crunching on a regular basis just to get planned work out the door.
Layoff Protections: Employees currently live in fear of suddenly losing their jobs, with no warning and through no fault of their own.
Remote Work Protections: Leadership is instituting a mandatory RTO, forcing numerous remote employees to return to a physical office or be forced to resign. This painful choice is splitting our employees between their homes, communities, and the jobs they love.
Generative AI Protections: Pressure has ramped up from leadership to adopt LLMs and Gen AI tools in various aspects of our work. WOTC lacks a robust AI policy, leaving opportunities for abuse and communicating a level of disrespect for artists and other creatives.
On their site, the union wrote:
Today is a momentous day for the workers of Arena! After months of planning, waiting and organizing, our dream is finally a reality; the votes have been counted, and our union of UWOTC-CWA has been officially elected.
From this day forward, we have a union!
To the thousands who signed our petition letter, the journalists who let us tell our own story, every person who reached out with words of encouragement, our stewards at the CWA who helped guide us, we cannot thank you enough for your support.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we can only hope that our victory in turn inspires others to start unionizing at their own workplaces. Change is possible when workers stand together!
We hope to share good news of a ratified contract with all of you soon.
It’s only recently that a momentum has been built and more staff in video games, comics, and more in the “geeks space” have come together for unionization. In early June, staff at Dark Horse had their union voluntarily recognized by management.
There are many more steps in the process to go but this vote is a major one for the staff. The next stage is for the union to establish a ratified contract with Wizards of the Coast. That can take quite a while.
