Ubisoft Workers Rally Roar: Reopen Halifax Studio!

HALIFAX – The bitter cold didn’t deter an enthusiastic crowd of Ubisoft workers and their supporters as they rallied today to pressure the video game company to reopen its closed Halifax studio.

Workers, community members, union activists, and the province’s NDP labour critic gathered at the Grand Parade in Halifax to make sure Ubisoft gets the message that it can’t kill 71 good local jobs without consequence.

“Look how scared Ubisoft is of 60 workers!” said Kira Wigg, a Ubisoft worker who helped organize with CWA Canada. “We’re going to keep fighting to get Ubisoft to do what’s right.”

“It’s saddening to see this when we had such a community we were trying to foster in Halifax.”

CWA Canada has filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Labour Board accusing Ubisoft of shutting down the Halifax operation – just three weeks after workers unionized – to keep out the union. 

The workers are also calling on N.S. Labour Minister Nolan Young to hold Ubisoft accountable for the $11 million in provincial subsidies it received. Ubisoft has taken over $1 billion in federal and provincial taxpayer subsidies in four provinces.

Paul Wozney, a Nova Scotia NDP MLA and the party’s labour critic, told the crowd that Ubisoft should be held accountable for the taxpayer subsidies it has received.

“What happened to you was not right,” he said. “Why is it legal for a company to take money and run?”

“You chose to develop your skills right here in Nova Scotia … You were building an emerging industry in Nova Scotia.”

“No worker is disposable and it’s a shame you’ve been treated this way by Ubisoft.”

France-based Ubisoft is one of the world’s most successful game-developing companies, employing 17,000 people globally, including over 4,000 in Toronto, Winnipeg, and four cities in Quebec.

Ubisoft Halifax includes 71 producers, programmers, designers, artists, researchers and development testers. Sixty-one of them are members of CWA Canada Local 30111, which includes nearly 120 game workers at Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) in Montreal, and staff at the Montreal Gazette newspaper.

CWA Canada is the country’s only all-media union, representing 6,000 workers at the CBC, The Canadian Press, and newspapers, tech, digital media, video gaming, and other companies coast to coast.