Thread by @Delafina777

Let's talk about this because it's incredible and sure to get under-reported. 1/x

https://twitter.com/Izsisu/status/1449440904444481536

Union organizing has obviously been underway since before the most recent events: you don't go from zero-to-union-with-a-supermajority in a month. And I don't know how much any of the freelancers knew about internal unionization efforts.

But what the freelancers are doing, which is essentially striking without a union, does two very important things:

1) It preemptively signals to Paizo's management that they're going to have trouble finding scabs if the union does strike.

Like, not just anyone can develop Pathfinder content. It's a pretty specialized skillset, and the freelancer pool is where you'd go first to find it outside the company. But the obvious place to go to to replace current Paizo devs is already saying they won't cross a picket line.

2) By engaging in what is, for all intents and purposes, a strike, they're giving the employees leverage without the employees having to strike, call for a boycott, etc.

Almost everything Paizo publishes is written by freelancers. Internal people might add an intro...

...they might rewrite a passage, they might write a section if the book ends up needing more text. But the freelancers are the ones who write the books. You don't put out the sheer volume of content Paizo puts out without a LOT of writers, and none of them are in-house.

(Paizo employees often write content, of course, but they're doing it as freelancers. On the clock, they're doing development/design/editing.)

The freelancers striking should bring most of the creative operations of the company to a standstill.

Which means the Paizo employees get the benefit of a strike without having to do it themselves, allowing them to negotiate more cordially with management...

...while still having the big gun of a strike-in-progress.

That's a really strong position to be in. They can say, "hey, we're not striking, we're not calling for a boycott, but we don't have any words to work on."

And historically, the option for employees who needed leverage but couldn't strike has been sabotage (literally from "sabot," shoe, throwing a shoe into machinery), malicious compliance, or the like.

Which might not be a strike, but is still hostile action.

What's really incredible here is that the freelancers are protecting the--for lack of a better word--purity of the employees' position. They can be good, loyal workers who aren't acting against the company's financial interests and just want to negotiate in good faith.

There's definitely a risk there. The management might recognize the union, but demand that the employees not use any of the freelancers who refused to work.

I don't think that's likely to happen, because in general management has always been uninterested in those details...

...and Paizo uses so many freelancers and uses them so often that making sure that no dev was giving work to any of them would require an exhausting level of micromanagement.

The current setup allows Paizo devs to give writers without much experience a shot, because they can assign them a small section (like 300 words or so) and give them guidance and feedback. If it doesn't work out, 300 words doesn't take long to rewrite.

However, the ability to do that is *strongly* dependent on having a pool of experienced freelancers who are getting the bulk of the work done and aren't going to require a ton of development work.

So when the experienced freelancers are not taking work, it's not as simple as just turning to less experienced freelancers. The production schedule leaves enough time to work with a few new people on a book. It doesn't leave enough time to use ALL new people.

So yeah, this isn't actually a strike.

But it has a lot of the *effects* of one. And it's incredible that that's coming from people who wouldn't directly benefit from the union.

That's a deeply inspiring level of solidarity.

It's also inspiring that a lot of customers canceled their subscriptions when the news started coming out about firings and working conditions at Paizo, and are now saying that they'll resubscribe when Paizo acknowledges the union.

Again, that's not an organized boycott, but it has a lot of the *effects* of one. So the union doesn't have to ask people to boycott, because a lot of customers are providing that economic leverage on their own.

So you have a *lot* of people whose interests might traditionally have been opposed in this (union employees who need leverage, freelancers who need work, and customers who need product) all acting in solidarity.

That's *incredible.*

In theory, all of this should make it as easy as possible for management to voluntarily acknowledge the union.

The employees aren't doing anything that has a negative impact on the business. The freelancers aren't an option for replacements...

...and instead of it looking like they'd lose business by unionizing, it looks like they'll lose business by NOT unionizing.

Plus the union at this point isn't actually asking for more money, just salary transparency. (Yes, I know that maybe one leads to the other.)

So between them, the customers, the freelancers, and the employees have laid what should be a very smooth road for management to take in voluntarily acknowledging the union.

Of course, there's a saying among freelancers and other companies in the TTRPG space:

Never make business decisions assuming that Paizo will do the smart thing.

So honestly, who knows.

But in any case, what the freelancers are doing is *beautiful* and powerful and looks pretty selfless from here.

It might also be unprecedented.

Anyway, point being, it's really popular to say stuff like "hey, did you enjoy your weekend? Thank unions."

If Paizo's unionization has a positive effect on the industry as a whole--which I believe it will--let's make sure we all remember the freelancers.