cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/36712639
Ubisoft’s first North American union, located at their Halifax, Nova Scotia studio, was certified on December 18th, 2025. Now, not even a full 30 days later, Ubisoft Halifax is closing.
so you are saying we can end ubisoft by simply unionizing?
Eh, we are already unionized in France. The difference is we have laws protecting workers so they can’t just shut a studio down willy nilly.
So do we in Canada… But that doesn’t mean that they are enforced
Ok so did they organize and sue the company?
Cuz enforcement usually requires more work such as a class action suit. Lawyers aren’t just jumping out there suing companies and filing the paper work to protect workers all on their own. There’s usually at least one person organizing it.
So who’s the person who got let go at Ubisoft that got it started?
deleted by creator
If the Canadian government were real it would exact punishing fines on the company’s Canadian held assets in response to this. And I don’t mean cost of business fees, I mean hurtful costs, because these giant fucking companies seriously damage Canadian lives when they just rugpull the labour after making massive profits of Canadian operations. There is no justifiable reason to side with Ubisoft or their scumsucking management here.
I completely agree. This isn’t so much a failure of business; it’s a failure of the government to properly hurt businesses that enact policies that hurt workers and consumers. And in democratic countries with voters, it’s also the failure of the voters.
This is why we need people like Lina Khan to be given much more power in society. There are good, liberal economists out there who understand that if you don’t regulate externalities, then market systems will cause extreme disfunction in society. Smart economists understand this, elite rich people understand it, the problem is that the bottom tier of society that is ignorant and believes in religious myths is easily deceived by the upper classes.
The result is a society with progressively more unequal wealth distribution, rapidly descending into environmental hell, with a public that is mostly confused, religious, and idioticly upset about market conditions, but glad the evil trans girl won’t be able to play softball.
All of these issues are part of the same problem: how do you convince the poor and stupid to not get tricked by the elite again? But perhaps it’s just impossible. After all, the poor are mostly religious and believe in crazy things like virgin births and flat earth… Until the poor reject such lunacy, or society becomes so awful that they are compelled to reject it, there’s really not much hope for change.
Genuinely, invest in education and you can resolve a lot of this in one fell swoop. I firmly believe that a large part of the reason the US is in its current state is because of the systematic cuts to our education system which have been happening for damn near half a century (fucking Reagan). Invest in the youth, give them the critical thinking and media literacy skills needed to draw their own conclusions, and I think you’ll have made significant progress on the issue.
Easier said than done, though, I’ll admit, and it’s a plan that operates on a pretty goddamn long timeline - a much longer one than the current critical situation is likely to allow us.
This is a great point. Specifically an increase in economic education required of students would be helpful, including helpful for things like understanding environmental science, because externalities and environmental science and regulation have overlap that most don’t understand.
“Instead of logic and reason, we will replace that with religion and superstition. We will kill your ability to think.”
Well put all around, and in response to your final point, I’m really not sure. I want to say this is the value of public education, but I don’t recall a terribly strong effort to educate people in common sense and media literacy so as to not be manipulated so easily, and end up voting against our own best interests back when I was in the system. Still, I had access to better education than most young people do today.
I think that lackluster regulation of media really is failing us too, since any billionaire can just buy up a large organization and dictate what it will and will not report on, and how it aims to persuade people in out society. All of this requires rooting out apathy and corruption in our governing public servants, and strengthening regulation, and every day I see more of the exact opposite of that. It’s hard to tell what the endpoint is that’s going to force a turn-around, if such a thing even exists beyond a systemic collapse that strips the power to manipulate the systems of governance from the ultra-rich.
Generally that means terrible suffering for all, and I’d much rather see a better path, like, oh I don’t know, massive taxation of enormous and excessive private wealth. Until I see politicians willing to take meaningful actions to resist and confront oligarchy, and a general public developing more self-awareness, I’ll continue to believe that outcome seems like a pipe dream.
As far as I’m concerned, unionization should be government mandated for every company everywhere in every industry.
But unfortunately we live in hell.
Absolutely this. We need mandated unions for every single company that exists. And with loopholes closed, like offshoring/outsourcing, corporate “headquarters” is a closet in Delaware, etc.
That’s the way it works in France (and other EU countries, I assume?). We literally have to have a workers reprensative council past a certain number of employees.
I live in Germany. Here its not mandated to have a workers representative council, but you are entitled to be allowed to make one. A workers representative council is distinct from a union, though.
As a Canadian living north of the nut-hatch, I wish I had the money to excercise my dual citizenship and get out of here to Portugal, or anywhere else in the EU.
I get where you’re coming from but unions should not be mandated, they need to be formed for the actual workers that want things to change for the better. Just look at Sweden for a good example of how to implement unions at almost all workspaces without the need for the state to be involved.
Look at Belgium for a good example of how they are mandated.
So how do they do it?
With stronger union protections, necessary unions will form organically.
By not getting the state involved at all. All negotiations happens between the workers and the companies with about 88% of workers in Sweden having a collective agreement. All workers also have the right legally to join or start a union and unionbusting is illegal. If the company doesn’t want a collective agreement it usually results in strikes such as the ongoing one against Tesla that has been going on since 2023.
But union busting being illegal is the state getting involved.
True, that we can agree on is necessary to not get into the same situation that happened here. What I’m saying is that it is not necessary for something to be mandatory for it to still be almost universal.
“Doesn’t need government” proceeds to name gov protection
Was a bit tired when writing the comment, should have been adjusted to minimal involvement as the main procedures should still be between workers and companies with the state just guaranteeing that these procedures can take place at all.
Now that’s a nuanced take!!! That I’m on board with.
The pinkertons have entered the chat
Don’t worry, the America’s free market provides many paramilitary groups to shutdown those pesky unions and curious journalists. No need for government involvement!
Damn, didn’t even know about those. Starting to sound like the US is just majorily fucked up with how they perceive the neverending chase for more profits (and money in the owners pockets). The problem still with government involvement is that it can then just as easily be removed and you’re back on square one. I’m not well informed enough about the US to actually give any valid input on how you would actually solve this.
That would be normal in a socialist society, not in a capitalistic one.
My 10+ year long Ubisoft boycott still looking like a good idea.
I started to Boycott Ubisoft when they started online DRM checks for single player games that you could not play offline anymore. It was with the release of Assassins Creed 2 and I think it was Settler 7. That was about 16 years ago.
I started to boycott Ubisoft when I can’t think of a single game of theirs I would even want to play.
I really wanted to play Watch Dogs when it came out. Unfortunately they also publish a lot of games. They have some cool titles ngl, but I pull through.
I pirated it at some point, it’s was as expected, stuffed with repetitive boring tasks to increase playtime. Didn’t get far before deleting it.
Oh and driving was still beyond broken over a year past release
Oof yeah ok dodged that bullet I guess 😂
Eh, I haven’t boycott Ubisoft. But also, they don’t make good games so I haven’t bought any either. Might just make it official after this though.
indeed
The open corruption and lack of empathy for the working class is just embarrassing. I hate EVERY company now since they only care about shares. They don’t even consider us as human, we are simply just tools for them and can be thrown away at any moment.
They always have. The owners of industry crave for the days of the Golden Age of Capitalism where they get to be the robber barons instead of just hearing tales about their Grandpa.
Jesus fucking christ so blatantly evil
It’s so easy to not buy games. When was the last good game they made? I guess I’ll continue to ignore their catalog.
I think they own hitman but honestly I still prefer blood money anyway. Play the oldies, goodies or the new Indies, goodies.
IOI bought Hitman back a few years ago, which is why World of Assassination is a thing. Before that, Ubi ruined it with a billion different packages. Now it’s a simple thing to get all three (modern) games.
That was Square Enix not Ubisoft.
Oop, thank you! That’s what I get for posting in the middle of the night.
Ah ok that’s why its not a steaming pile of shit. I remember when they streamlined it but didn’t realize there was a change over.
I’ll just add it to the pile of reasons why ubisoft is on my shit list alongside ea, epic, and activision.
Solvent corporations shouldn’t be legally allowed to dissolve positions.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
Next thing I’ll learn will be that Splinter Cell was a pro fascist story all along
“Wait your saying the guy that goes in and forcibly changes country regimes with murder is a baddie? No that can’t be it…”
Whelp, I already de facto boycotting Ubisoft since I’m a patent gamer. Guess I’ll actively boycott them now.
Patent gamer?
You only play original ideas?
No they only play games while in the hospital
Nope, I only play games that are heavily discounted or given away
I get that, I was just having fun with your typo 🙂
It’s double funny because it’s pretty much the opposite of what it was meant.
Got it. No more Ubisoft support and no more money given. I’m not a big fan of unions but with no federal laws to protect the workers I am even less of a fan of union busters.
Ubisoft just continues to be awful.
Anyone notice that Halifax is spelt 3 different ways in the article?
My personal favourite is Hailfox.
All Hail The FOX.
Faxy Lody
Boom Boom!
But what does it say?
LMAO, a and o are on opposite end of the keyboard, how do you even do this?
a and o are on opposite end of the keyboard
Maybe the author has a Dvorak keyboard layout (a and o are next to each other there).
I see only see Hailfax but maybe they corrected the fox one.
