ZeniMax QA union reaches a tentative contract agreement with Microsoft including 'substantial across-the-board wage increases,' worker protections, and more

Just two months after voting to authorize a strike action over stalled negotiations with Microsoft, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA has announced a tentative contract agreement that includes "substantial across-the-board wage increases" along with new minimum salaries for employees, protections against arbitrary dismissal, grievance procedures, and a new policy for game credits "that clearly acknowledges the QA workers' contributions to the videogames they help create."

"QA workers from across the country continue to lead the charge for industry-wide change," senior QA tester and ZeniMax Workers United-CWA bargaining committee member Page Branson said in the announcement. "Going toe-to-toe with one of the largest corporations in the world isn’t a small feat. This is a monumental victory for all current videogame workers and for those that come after."

ZeniMax Workers United was formed in January 2023 and negotiations for a first contract began shortly thereafter, but made limited headway over the following two years. In April 2025, members voted to authorize union leadership to call for a strike if negotiations continued to drag on with no progress.

"If Microsoft and ZeniMax continue to demonstrate at the bargaining table that they're unwilling to pay us fair wages for the value our labor provides to our games, we'll be showing them just how valuable our labor is," ZeniMax Workers United-CWA Local 6215 member and senior QA tester Zachary Armstrong said at the time.

Microsoft, however, said "substantial progress" had been made over the course of the negotiations, adding that it had presented a "fair" proposal to the union that "if accepted it would result in immediate compensation increases, even more robust benefits and is in alignment to the company's hybrid model of three days in office."

This isn't the end of the process: "Contract explanation meetings" for the union's more than 300 members will take place over the next few weeks, and a ratification vote is expected to be concluded by June 20. Assuming the union votes in favor (and I think that's a pretty safe assumption), this will be the first game industry contract of its kind in the US, but it surely won't be the last.

The push for unionization at game studios in North America has picked up significant steam over the past year: 600 Activision QA employees voted to unionize in March 2024, while Bethesda Game Studios developers formed a "wall to wall" union including artists, designers, and programmers in July 2024, as did Blizzard's 500-person World of Warcraft team. Earlier this year nearly 200 Overwatch developers launched a union of their own, the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild. Game developers also launched the first industry-wide union in North America in March 2025, open to anyone in the North American game industry "irrespective of studio and current job status."