Canadian QA testers organize after return-to-office order piles on cost

Quality assurance workers employed by contractor Keywords Studios, whose clients include BioWare, were motivated to organize a union because of a return-to-office order that would mean hundreds of dollars in commuting expenses for employees mostly making minimum wage, one of the organizers told Polygon.

Last week, the Alberta, Canada Labour Relations Board informed Keywords Studios that its Edmonton QA employees were organizing under the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union, Local No. 401, to be their collective bargaining agent. Tuesday, May 3 is the deadline for their employer to file any objections to the union’s formation. Assuming there are none, a vote should be scheduled within two weeks, and if 51% of the Keywords testers vote yes, they will begin bargaining a contract.

Keywords is the second North American video game developer to organize workers into a collective bargaining group. On Friday, twenty-one Raven Software QA employees in Wisconsin began to vote on the formation of a union known as Game Workers Alliance. Those votes will be counted May. 23.

Keywords Studios, founded in 1998, is headquartered in Ireland and maintains more than 20 offices worldwide. The company’s British Columbia branch manages Keywords Studios Edmonton. Keywords offers technical services for art, audio and games development. However, it does not create or publish any games. BioWare, owned by Electronic Arts since 2007, is among several AAA studios and publishers in the company’s clientele.

One of Keywords’ organizers, who asked not to be identified as “our management doesn’t know who’s involved with the effort at this point,” said that their vote could involve between 15 and 20 employees, pending a Labour Board review of eligible positions. However, the organizer believes that they will be able to form a union. This [vote threshold].”

should not be a problem.

The organizer stated that the actions of the Raven workers, which were well-publicized in games media, had been a source of inspiration for them, as they showed that it was possible and feasible to act. The actual reason for starting a union, they said, stemmed from unhappiness with low wages, and then a return-to-work policy that will add significant monthly parking fees and other commuting costs to a job still paying them the same wage that it was just a few weeks ago.

“Our entry level testers start at minimum wage,” which in Alberta is CA$15 an hour. “A one-bedroom apartment is about $1,000 here in Edmonton. Paid twice monthly, the organizer reckoned that many of their colleagues take home between $950 and $970 each paycheck.

Organizers claim that workers from other departments are given more freedom.

“While our studio counterparts over at BioWare, they’re getting a little more of a hybrid model, flex hours, or permanent work-from-home options, it wasn’t really being afforded to us,” the organizer said. “So, some of our members felt that maybe we can have a little more of a conversation about this.”

Public parking, which workers are expected to cover themselves, runs between $250 and $350 a month, they said. They stated that this is before you consider buying groceries or other costs. Workers had avoided this and other commuting costs by working from home since the COVID-19 pandemic emptied out offices in the spring of 2020.

The organizer said they have worked for Keywords for two years and gotten a raise to $16. 50 an hour, but they, like most of the workers who would vote on a union, started their testing job during the pandemic and have not gone into BioWare’s office to work alongside its developers. Over the past two years, Keywords QA in Edmonton assisted on Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, which launched last May, as well as the Legacy of the Sith expansion that launched for Star Wars: The Old Republic this February. Currently, Keywords QA workers are working on the next Dragon Age, the organizer said.

“Most of our people have student loans.” they stated. The American system of post-secondary education does not make it free, just like in the United States. They stated that most of their coworkers had four-year degrees from universities, while those who didn’t had likely attended a technical college. A well-respected public university in Edmonton called the University of Alberta is often used as a bridge to local technology industries, including games development.

“It really resonated with a lot of our members that we are viewed as unskilled labor — minimum wage, you get to sit around and play video games all day, right?” the organizer said. But I believe the truth is that the QA industry can be extremely technical. Many of the people on our team are graduates of universities with degrees in computer science and are just starting out in this industry.

“They’re highly talented individuals that are creating immense wealth for their employer, at the expense of themselves,” they added.