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**A Gaming Company's Workers Unionized. But the Union Busting Didn't
End There.**

****TCGplayer, a subsidiary of eBay, has stalled negotiations on a first
contract, despite the union winning an election in March.

Earlier this year, workers at TCGplayer (TCG), an eBay subsidiary,
formed the company's first union
.
The 282 nonsupervisory employees at TCG voted overwhelmingly for forming
the union after years of organizing. The next step is a
collective-bargaining agreement-but first, members must contend with
stalled negotiations and near-endless union-busting efforts.

An online marketplace similar to its owner eBay, TCG specializes in
trading and playing cards for popular games such as Pokémon or Magic:
The Gathering. The website is a hub for players to buy and sell cards;
workers at the company verify, sort, and organize shipping for its
customers.

Employees have been unionizing since 2020, when an effort through the
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) failed. Workers say they
are underpaid, given insufficient time off, and generally disregarded
when it comes to decisions directly affecting their livelihood.

TCG, at the time a stand-alone company, hired Littler Mendelson, a legal
firm that provides counsel on how to "lawfully avoid" unions. As the
Prospect
has
detailed at length
,
Littler is the largest union-busting law firm in the world, and has been
called in by the likes of Starbucks

to deter unionization efforts.

Littler's pressure, combined with the uncertainty of the pandemic, led
workers to withdraw their union petition. But while those efforts were
tempered, they were not snuffed out.

"A lot of [organizing] is talking to your co-workers about issues that
are going on in your workplace and finding collective solutions to
answer those issues," Ethan Salerius, an employee at TCG and member of
the mobilizing team for the union, told the

**Prospect**. "So that spirit never went away, but their efforts had to
go underground," he said. Workers connected with the Communications
Workers of America (CWA) in 2022.

In 2022, eBay acquired TCGplayer for nearly $300 million
,
and kept Littler on hand. An "extremely intense" anti-union campaign
followed, Salerius said. He recalled large posters with anti-union
statements, constant anti-union chatter rotating on televisions in their
workspace, and thinly veiled threats to remove certain benefits, like
massage chairs at the office. None of this worked. In March, the
three-year unionization drive culminated in the membership voting 136-87
to unionize with CWA.

But that was only the first half of the process. Since the election,
eBay has consistently frustrated efforts to negotiate a first contract,
so much so that CWA has filed complaints

alleging unfair labor practices.

[link removed]

One of the complaints involves the unit clarification process. After the
union voted in March, TCGplayer alleged that the election had been
unduly influenced by supervisors who were not a part of the bargaining
unit. The standard practice is to conduct the election with contested
ballots for employees who may or may not be a part of the union.

In this case, the win was a supermajority, and the contested ballots
were never opened. Still, TCG has held up the negotiation process by
appealing the election on that basis. The union has been certified by
the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) District 3, but with the
appeal pending, the unit clarification process is ongoing.

"We should have been bargaining, at minimum, when their first appeal was
thrown out and we were certified [by the NLRB district]," Salerius said.
"They've taken the route of delaying, delaying, delaying."

While negotiations have officially started, the stalling has only
continued. "They come to the table, and they'll talk. But what is talk
when nothing comes of it?" Angelo Andreula, another union member, said.
"And they'll constantly use the fact that we have to have a contract
as an excuse to not give raises, even though they very well could." CWA
has also filed complaints about refusal to bargain over a first
contract.

The

**Prospect**contacted eBay seeking comment; the company has yet to
respond.

"It all could have been avoided if eBay and TCGplayer had agreed to
voluntarily recognize us as a unit," Salerius said. Until recently, eBay
officially expressed a pro-union sentiment in its human rights policy
statement
. The
same month of the unionization vote, the company removed the pro-union
language from the statement.

Major gaming industry companies have also seen unionization efforts over
the past year. I previously

covered those efforts at Activision Blizzard under Microsoft; others

include Avalanche Studios and Cards Against Humanity.

Last month, employees conducted informational pickets outside of the
company's Syracuse, New York, worksite, often in freezing cold
weather. In New York City, CWA members also conducted pickets outside of
the home of eBay board chair Paul Pressler. That same week, the
comptroller's offices for both New York state and New York City sent a
letter, addressed

to Pressler, requesting that the online retailer restore the union
language and that it abide by its prior commitment in its dealings with
TCG. The letter also notes that the New York City and New York state
pension funds manage almost 2.5 million eBay shares, which were valued
at $111 million in June.

Morale and support for the cause remain high. Andreula notes the support
they have received from the gaming and card-playing community, as well
as Syracuse community members showing support at their informational
pickets.

"We did not back down. We did not let them scare us," Salerius said. "We
stood in solidarity and called on our community."

~ RAMENDA CYRUS, JOHN LEWIS WRITING FELLOW

Follow Ramenda Cyrus on Twitter

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