Union Busting By Implication: Ubisoft Shutters Halifax Studio, Lays Off 71 Just Weeks After It Unionized

More than a decade ago, EA won Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” title two years in a row. A good friend of mine used to joke that the only reason it managed that ignominious distinction was because Ubisoft is French.

As reported by IGN this week, the Assassin’s Creed publisher and developer shut down Ubisoft Halifax just weeks after workers there successfully unionized, becoming the first certified Ubisoft union in North America. Seventy-one employees were affected by the shutdown. Sixty-one of them had just voted to organize. Ubisoft says the timing is unrelated, attributing the closure to restructuring, efficiency, and the declining performance of the Assassin’s Creed Rebellion mobile game, which will wind down following the studio shutdown.

And I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Ubisoft will argue that this closure is simply the reality of a volatile industry. At a macro level, that argument holds water. The company has been poorly managed for years and has sustained heavy losses as its top IPs got poorly received new editions and lost popularity. Rebellion is a perfect example.

Under closer examination, however, Ubisoft’s excuse is too convenient to be taken seriously. Plenty of publishers are struggling without coincidentally shuttering newly unionized teams (in this case, Ubisoft’s only unionized outfit in the region), and Ubisoft has plenty of other subsidiaries that will continue operations despite the parent company’s struggles.

Industry uncertainty cited by Ubisoft as an excuse for the layoffs predated the Halifax workers’ union vote, which raises the obvious question of why the studio remained viable until this remarkably convenient moment.

The simple truth is that when labor action and layoffs align this neatly, the credibility of these billion-dollar corporations’ excuses quickly erodes. A similar situation is playing out at Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games.

Late last year, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) filed legal claims against Rockstar after the studio terminated more than 30 staff in the U.K. and Canada, alleging the dismissals were retaliation for union activity and a means of collective dismissal to undermine union organizing. IWGB has pursued legal action on behalf of the affected workers, who argue that being fired for their involvement with union discussions violates their rights and constitutes unfair dismissal.

Companies do not need to announce or admit to anti-union motives to discourage unionization. They only need to establish a pattern. Organize, and suddenly your studio is no longer viable. That is union-busting by implication.

Ubisoft does not need to be uniquely bad to be uniquely dangerous. It only needs to keep demonstrating that organizing comes with consequences and let the industry draw its own conclusions.