“They put our knife under their throat to sign.” Therefore, at the beginning of the week, he expressed himself with Tech & Co, a union representative of Ubisoft Paris, one of the entities in full negotiations with his administration, at the end of another round of negotiations on teleworking, subject of internal tension for months.
The disagreements will have continued until the end and, therefore, the discussions will have remained almost inaudible between the two parties. On Friday, May 9, the three Ubisoft Paris unions (the STJV, CFE-CGC and SOLIDS IT) in a joint press release denounced “a biased process” according to them.
The STJV, CFE-CGC and Solidarres notably indicated the difficult conditions of exchanges around the renegotiation of teleworking time granted to employees, evoking “an unprecedented context of pressures and obstacles to social dialogue.” However, Ubisoft had affirmed for months tried to communicate with its elected officials to find an agreement.
Bring back to be more creative
The Ubisoft Management wishes to finish the generalized teleworking and return to a minimum of three days of presence per week in the office to “stimulate creativity by more interpersonal interactions and face to face.” What the unions reject, some employees are 100% telenhronals by personal choice (moving, family situation, employment contract, etc.). “Yves (Guillemot) would have discovered that 50% of Floresco employees (Ubisoft headquarters in Saint-Mandé, editor’s note) was not known.
It should be said that teleworking did not exist in the French editor before the pandemic and that the total change was accepted to respond to what the company considered as a “great demand for games” during confinement. To the point of accepting that their 20,000 employees at that time could continue to design games from home. “Employees have rebuilt their lives away from the offices and the return in face to face will represent difficulties for them,” said Tech & Co, a chosen representative of solidarity of the Computerity.
The unions mainly denounced characteristic obstructions during the six months of negotiations (change of human resources interlocutors in four times, acts of union repression, lack of impact study on the consequences, not adjusted quantified, etc.).
Ubisoft management is far from establishing the new teleworking rate at 60% face to face as announced initially. It proposes to go from 100% to 90% (1 to 2 days per month), to maintain the surpluses obtained by certain employees, “on annual justification and renewal”, when they are less than two days a week or to grant 80% in certain cases. But this must be validated by a committee composed of the study director and a DRH representative.
“These are people who will not know the people involved, who will make the decisions without knowing the implications in the productions, etc. will only have the sound of bell tower or others, not union representatives,” regrets a union representative. “It is totally partial and in criteria that we do not know.”
100% negotiations on a case and justification basis
At the moment, according to elected officials, management is committed “orally” so as not to invoke the reversibility clause for those who are 100% teleworking and that we would force to return. For employees who are minor, there will be no way to increase the amount of current non -present. “We find that the sustainability of individual situations is light and revocable unilaterally,” he regrets, and emphasizes that management has not extended repeal criteria (for example, for long trips).
In Montpellier or Annecy, we refuse to sign the teleworking agreement unilaterally. In Paris, only computer science signed according to the other representatives, not by acceptance, but to “ensure at least the minimum advances obtained.” At the Ubisoft headquarters in Saint-Mandé, which is not under the same regime as French studies, negotiations were all and validated. “The negotiations are Studio’s study, with unequal advances,” continues to deplore the delegation of the Union.
But it is the promise of “co-construction”, announced by Xavier Poix, which goes wrong. “They didn’t care about their mouths,” said a Parisian employee. “There was not absolutely one. We had the same proposal as the seat when the situations are different, the representation of the union is different. We had obtained advances that were canceled because the seat had not obtained them. Therefore, we were modeled on them in less.”
The “co-constructor” that does not happen
If the successes ofAssassin’s Creed Shadows and the coronation of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown In the Pegasses 2025 the spirits had calmed down a bit, the situation remains tense, while the company must communicate about its last fiscal year on May 14. Questions about the reaction of the unions, Ubisoft did not want to comment on the situation with Tech & Co. with a union in Paris that signed the agreement, the elected officials are always the possibility of denouncing it and leaving it to the new negotiations again. The dialogue seems broken, they all see it as a way to achieve what they fear: a more marked face return to face and an incentive of management to begin the exit movements, thus avoiding the dismissal plans that led the international to the closing of several studies.
“We fear a disorganization of productions and an increase in psychosocial risks,” said an elected official a few months ago, while 25% of employees were already thinking of leaving the company if 100% teleworking was abandoned. Actually, it is not really, but it is seriously cut at a time when many editors, development studies and other technological giants in general have begun a movement to take employees to the office. And sometimes much more radical like in Amazon, where it is the face to face that is 100%ironed.
Source: BFM TV
