TCGplayer’s Pokemon Card-Wielding Warehouse Workers Are Fighting to Unionize
by Kim Kelly
Credit: TCGplayer Organizing Committee
The conversation around workers’ rights in the gaming community has largely focused on two big issues: gender discrimination and harassment within the industry, and game developers’ punishing work schedules—particularly the notorious “crunch” period that forces teams to slog through hours of unpaid overtime for anywhere from three to six months in the lead-up to a marquee release. When burned-out workers (many of them independent contractors) are made to feel unsafe at work and then asked to pull 100-hour weeks, talk of unionization is inevitable. Back in 2017, video game voice actors represented by SAG-AFTRA went on strike against 11 major game companies, and another spark was lit in 2018, when a roundtable discussion at the annual Game Developers Conference called “Union Now? Pros, Cons, and Consequences of Unionization” illuminated the community’s widespread support for collective action.
Since then, multiple organizing efforts have sprung up, including the worker-led grassroots organization Game Workers Unite. Earlier this year, following discussions with Game Workers Unite and independent organizers throughout the tech industry, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) launched its official campaign to organize video game and tech workers. The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE) is one of the most notable efforts to level the playing field in an industry that’s crying out for change, but isn’t the only unionizing effort happening in the gaming space. There’s another revolution brewing outside of the virtual realm: one that’s less glamorous but keeps the entire industry’s wheel’s turning. As game developers bust their humps to prep game after game for market, someone still has to pack and ship the physical products out to customers. The industry’s warehouse workers, printers and manufacturing workers need a union, too.
And now, they’re fighting to win one. TCGplayer—one of the largest dedicated online marketplaces for Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and other collectible card games—made waves in 2019 when it laid off nearly 15 percent of its workforce. The company was founded in 2008 by two diehard Magic: The Gathering players, and quickly rose to the top of the fantasy-fueled gaming food chain. Their stated company ethos revolves around compassion, teamwork, and a shared love of geek culture, but now that fulfilment center workers at TCGplayer are trying to unionize with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the higher ups are singing a different tune.
Organizing committee member Richard Vallejo has only been working in the TCGplayer receiving department for the past 8 months, but says he has already witnessed a number of changes that have damaged his and his fellow workers’ trust in the company. Health care costs have risen as pay scales have slid south, and a laser focus on metrics and increasing productivity have been a continuing source of stress for workers struggling to keep up or risk being dropped to a lower pay level (or fired outright). The heavy layoffs that ripped through the company in 2019 had a huge impact on morale, and carried an extra sting—as Vallejo says, “Recent hiring had made an effort to increase the number of women in the warehouse, and so women made up a majority of those laid off.” The organizing committee’s main concerns are healthcare, job security, wages, and company transparency, as well as better benefits and more realistic work expectations.
“Goal posts are constantly moving for people who want to advance within the warehouse, while our base pay is barely above NYS minimum wage and everyone is dealing with increasing rents, car payments, student loan payments, medical issues, and raising families,” he continued. “Having a direct role in setting these conditions, and feeling secure in those conditions not changing suddenly by having them in a contract will be the only way to make everyone feel less precarious and disposable.”
There are physical risks at work, as well, and the nature of TCGplayer’s business creates unique risks for warehouse laborers. Instead of handling pallets or crates, or even sealed products, they’re working with individual cards. “While it sounds like light work, it requires constant fine movements with our hands, tedious work while sitting hunched over desks or at filing cabinets, all for extended periods of time,” Vallejo explains. “The fulfillment center has only existed for a little over five years and much of the workforce is under 30 or not even long out of college, but already workers are dealing with repetitive stress injuries; carpal tunnel, back and shoulder issues. People have had to give up artwork and other hobbies due to these health issues, or even go on medical leave and seek out corrective surgeries.”
Jon Secora, a shipping department who’s been with the company for three years, is intimately familiar with these workplace hazards. He’s currently on medical leave for the carpal tunnel that he developed on the job at TCGplayer, after straining to keep up with increasing production demands. Now, he cannot use his hands without pain, and is in dire financial straits. “After being given restrictions by the doctor, I was told by work that they do not have work for me, so I will cease receiving a paycheck from them until they lift, leaving me in a pretty bad situation right now,” he explains. “We run the risk of terrible injury working here, and instead of listening to our pleas that it is putting tremendous wear on us, we are responded to by being told 'just go faster, most of you already reach this right now’.
The organizing effort has been underway for months now, and on Monday, March 16, the organizing committee delivered their demand for recognition to management. The response was swift—and disappointing. In an email reply sent by the “TCGplayer Leadership Team” later that day, the company expressed its anti-union stance and, echoing generations of union busters before them, pledged to provide team members with “the facts” about “SEIU, the union representation process, and the collective bargaining process.”
The request for voluntary recognition was rejected, and TCGplayer has asked for a secret ballot NLRB election instead. None of it came as a shock to the organizing committee, though and they’ll continue to marshall support for the union drive ahead of the election. Vallejo took the disappointment in stride, saying, “Despite claims of being a progressive-thinking company, I believe their priorities will be maintaining the ability to make whatever changes whenever they deem necessary, and a lack of transparency about finances and future plans as they work further towards emulating Amazon’s model.”
Matters have been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While TCGplayer has encouraged those who can work from home to do so since the start of last week and instituted a company-wide paid sick leave policy, fulfillment center workers continue to be left out. Their jobs require their physical presence, they’re worried about more layoffs, and as Vallejo says, recent changes mean that, “many of us were pushed off of quality health insurance plans and can’t afford to go to the doctor on the Bronze plan even if we do get sick.”
As the campaign soldiers on, there are a number of ways that the labor movement and the gaming community can come together to support these workers in their fight. TCG Player is largely an online entity and as such, relies on its online image and presence to grow and thrive. Leaving comments on TCGPlayer's various social media platforms is an easy way to show support, as is leaving customer feedback urging the company to support the union and, most importantly, spreading the word.
Solidarity from other gamers and industry voices is crucial, too. Danielle Riendeau, Senior Editor at Fanbyte Media and a former member of the VICE Union bargaining committee, was thrilled to hear about the TCGPlayer union drive. “Each person who worked on that effort deserves a huge congratulations, and that people in more front-facing positions should take inspiration from them - and take notice of how they got it done!” she says. “The people who work in the back always seem to do the toughest jobs, and pioneering this is another way they have done that.”
Those tough jobs seem poised to become even tougher, and the workers themselves may have a long slog ahead thanks to Trump’s NLRB, but they’re firm in their resolve to fight, to win, and to hopefully inspire others in their industry to take the leap, and seize control. TCGplayer’s fulfillment center workers want to lift up everyone in the gaming space, and are counting on their colleagues across the industry to stand with them.
“While it’s great to see these more white collar workers organize and address issues like deadline crunch, it’s also important to remember that there are a lot of blue collar workers, who often grow up poor and working class, who are also in these industries,” he says. “I hope that our efforts in the TCGplayer fulfillment center give inspiration to many others, and that workers who might feel more powerless in these rapidly growing, high value industries realize the true potential of organizing together to improve the conditions of our work.”
Kim Kelly is a freelance writer and a labor columnist for Teen Vogue and The Baffler. You can follow her on Twitter at @GrimKim.