Ubisoft French Workers Strike Over Return To Office Order Spreads To Italy

Strike action by Ubisoft staff in France over the company’s order that employees be in the office at least three days a week, has spread to Italy.

Some 700 French staff in Ubisoft offices in Paris, Montpellier, Lyon and Annecy have been on a three-day strike since Tuesday over the RTO mandate which comes on top of growing discontent over pay.

The dispute comes in an uncertain period for the Assassin’s Creed creator, following reports Chinese internet giant Tencent and majority owners, the Guillemot family, are exploring a joint buyout that would make the company private. Tencent currently holds 9.2% of Ubisoft’s voting rights while Guillemot has 20.5%.

The potential buyout follows a bumpy period for Ubisoft which saw its share price fell to a 10-year low in September following news that the highly anticipated release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows had been delayed until February 2025, while poor sales on games like Star Wars Outlaws has also weighed on the share price.

French game workers union STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo) called for the strike after Ubisoft management did not respond to a call for talks over the RTO order. The STJV reported on Thursday that Ubisoft staff in Milan had joined the industrial action out of solidarity.

The STJV says Ubisoft has not given any tangible justification for the move, or consulted with workers’ representatives on the matter.

The union says the implementation of RTO could have a detrimental impact on staff who have constructed their homes lives around the working remotely over the past five years. A particular concern, is that many staff no longer live close to the physical locations of the Ubisoft offices.

“The consequence of its decision will be the loss of our colleagues’ jobs, the disorganization of many game projects, and the drastic increase in psychosocial risks for those who remain,” read a STJV release. One union leader even suggested Ubisoft had launched the RTO order as a way to shed staff.

The union noted that the RTO order had been issued shortly after talks over profit-sharing had broken down. In its demands, the STJV is asking for a formal agreement on remote working and RTO obligations, as well as the re-opening of salary negotiations.

In Italy, the Milan branch of the Fiom Cgil union called a one-day strike for October 17, saying it too feared that some Italian staff would have no option to but quit their jobs if a three-day RTO mandate was imposed.

“It is unthinkable that a young person who lives in another region or in any case far from our territory could spend three days a week in Milan, turning their existence upside down: it is not economically sustainable and unfair on a human level,” said Fiom Cgil representative Andrea Rosafalco.