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Emma Kinema

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Emma Kinema
A white woman with brown hair, ear piercings, and thick plastic glasses wears a white, sleeveless shirt with a rose pattern; in the background is a green plant
NationalityAmerican
OccupationLabor organizer
Known for

Emma Kinema is a former game developer and an American labor organizer working as Senior Campaign Lead for the Communications Workers of America (CWA) CODE-CWA initiative to organize tech, game, and digital worker unions in the US and Canada.[1][2]

Union Organizing Career[]

She was hired by the Communications Workers of America union in 2019 to organize video game and tech workers. In early 2020 Kinema helped launch the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), the first initiative of its kind in those sectors. [3][4]

Since 2020, CODE-CWA has organized "thousands of tech, game, and digital workers" with over a dozen organizing campaigns, including several certified unions with collective bargaining rights.[5] CODE-CWA campaigns have been launched at a range of workplaces such as major multinational tech companies, small startups, video game studios, media companies, AAA game publishers, worker co-operatives, and table-top game companies. [6]

She plans to use the Communications Workers of America's infrastructure to fight issues including crunch time, layoffs, and workplace ethics, which she has construed as working conditions for employees who choose employers based on their ability to impact society.[7]

In August 2020, Kinema helped organize the first successful strike in the game industry at Voltage Entertainment, leading to massive pay increases and workplace transparency.[8]

In January 2021 she led over 400 employees of Alphabet (parent company of Google) in forming the Alphabet Workers Union (CWA Local No. 1400) with a rare solidarity union model. The Alphabet Workers Union is notably open to non Alphabet employees, including Temporary, Vendor, and Contract workers, who make up almost half of the workforce.

In June 2021 Kinema was involved in announcing that 70 workers at Change.Org had received voluntary recognition of their union and will be represented by CODE-CWA for collective bargaining. To date, Change.org is the largest tech company to voluntarily recognize a union as the representative of its staff. About half the staff are based in the US and half in Canada.[9][10]

In October 2021 workers at Paizo, the table-top game company behind Pathfinder and Starfinder, demanded and won voluntary recognition of their union with CODE-CWA, becoming the first known certified union of table-top game workers with collective bargaining rights. This followed months of conflict where Paizo staff, freelancers, and fans protested poor working conditions at the company.[11] [12][13]

In December 2021, workers at indie game developer Vodeo Games announced they won voluntary recognition of their union, becoming the first certified union of video game workers in North America.[14] Their unit is made up of workers in the US and Canada and it includes all job types, full-time employees, and contract workers.[15]

Game Industry Career[]

External video
video icon Presentation at XOXO, 2019

Emma Kinema's career background in the video game industry has spanned a variety of roles across multiple types and sizes of game companies. She had also been involved in labor organizing since the early 2010s. By the late 2010s, those interests coincided for her as a labor organizer in the games industry.[16]

While working full-time as a quality assurance tester for an Orange County, California-based game developer,[17] Kinema became a founding member of Game Workers Unite,[18] a group of volunteers organizing the video games industry. Kinema and games writer Liz Ryerson were the main figures behind the initial expansion of Game Workers Unite in early 2018.[19] This volunteering, which she estimated as 60 hours per week, included giving and receiving training and was supported by crowdfunded monthly income.[17]

Kinema's interest in organizing was propelled by her first- and secondhand experiences with crunch time (long periods of overtime), toxic workplace culture, and issues related to layoffs, pay gaps, discrimination, health care, and artistic credit attribution.[16] She had previously trained with the Industrial Workers of the World.[17]

In March 2019 Kinema helped to organize a panel on labor at the Game Developers' Conference.[20]

In May 2019 she helped to organize the walkout at Riot Games over its handling of sex discrimination which successfully ended the silencing of marginalized workers through the practice of forced arbitration. She assisted Riot workers in creating an organizing committee after they attended a 2018 Game Workers Unite meeting and further advised the organizers via phone.[17]

Variety named the Game Workers Unite organizers and Kinema (as the group's most public figure) among the most influential people in video games in 2018.[21]

Personal life[]

Her name is a pseudonym chosen so that she could continue working in the games industry without risking dismissal or reprisal under at-will employment. She described undergoing "pretty extreme lengths" to separate her full-time career from her work as an organizer.[22]

Kinema has described herself as a queer trans woman[23] and has frequently written about the connection between economic and social issues in demonstrating the importance of union organizing in fighting for social justice.[24]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "https://twitter.com/emmakinema". Twitter. Retrieved November 25, 2021. External link in |title= (help)
  2. ^ "About CODE-CWA". Organizing Campaigns. January 2, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  3. ^ Statt, Nick (January 7, 2020). "A massive telecom union just launched a new campaign to unionize game developers". The Verge. Archived from the original on January 13, 2020. Retrieved January 13, 2020.
  4. ^ D'Anastasio, Cecilia (January 7, 2020). "A Big Union Wants to Make Videogame Workers' Lives More Sane". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on April 7, 2020. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  5. ^ "Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA)". Organizing Campaigns. November 25, 2019. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  6. ^ "Campaigns". Organizing Campaigns. August 27, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  7. ^ Hall, Charlie (January 9, 2020). "The effort to unionize the video game industry just got a shot of adrenaline". Polygon. Archived from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  8. ^ Carpenter, Nicole (August 11, 2020). "These game writers made history by going on strike — and winning". Polygon. Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  9. ^ Conger, Kate (January 4, 2021). "Hundreds of Google Employees Unionize, Culminating Years of Activism". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  10. ^ "Change.Org Workers Form A Union, Giving Labor Activists Another Win In Tech". NPR.org. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  11. ^ Hall, Charlie (October 14, 2021). "Workers at Paizo unionize, a first for the tabletop role-playing game industry". Polygon. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  12. ^ "https://twitter.com/rkgwork/status/1451344696597438467". Twitter. Retrieved November 25, 2021. External link in |title= (help)
  13. ^ Carpenter, Nicole (October 22, 2021). "Pathfinder, Starfinder publisher voluntarily recognizes workers' union". Polygon. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  14. ^ "Indie Studio Forms First Video Game Union In The Country". Kotaku. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  15. ^ Carpenter, Nicole (December 15, 2021). "North America has its first video game union at Vodeo Games". Polygon. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  16. ^ a b Feldman, Brian (January 31, 2020). "Why Video Game Workers Need a Union: a Q&A with Emma Kinema". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on January 9, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
  17. ^ a b c d Scheiber, Noam (September 1, 2019). "As Grass-Roots Labor Activism Rises, Will Unions Take Advantage?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 6, 2020. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  18. ^ Dean, Sam (April 12, 2019). "As video games make billions, the workers behind them say it's time to unionize". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 2, 2021. Retrieved May 31, 2021.
  19. ^ Frank, Allegra (March 21, 2018). "This is the group using GDC to bolster game studio unionization efforts". Polygon. Archived from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  20. ^ Futter, Michael (March 22, 2019). "What Game Workers Can Learn From Other Labor Organizations". Variety. Archived from the original on September 29, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  21. ^ Winkie, Luke (December 31, 2018). "Most Influential in Video Games 2018: Esports Stars, Union Leaders, Iconic Indies". Variety. Archived from the original on September 28, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  22. ^ Milner, David (December 21, 2018). "Game Workers Unite: The Fight To Unionize The Video Game Industry". Game Informer. Archived from the original on January 12, 2020. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
  23. ^ "Level Up". ourtimes.ca. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  24. ^ Kinema, Emma (August 17, 2021). "How the video game industry can unionize in the wake of Activision Blizzard". Polygon. Retrieved November 25, 2021.

External links[]

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