Two More Unions! Hachette Book Group Employees and workers at Magic The Gathering: Arena Both Vote to Unionize!

There are two more unions in the geek space as Hachette Book Group Employees and workers at Magic The Gathering: Arena both have voted to unionize.

Employees of Hachette Book Group have voted to unionize, joining the Washington-Baltimore News-Guild-CW Local 32035 of the AFL-CIO. A supermajority of the 600 workers signed up and the Hachette Workers Coalition (HWC) is now the largest union in trade publishing history. The members are seeking a livable wage regardless of work location, better working conditions, a cap on workload hours, a clear and neutral grievance process, AI protections, follow-through on DEI policies, and more.

The HWC have successfully organized in the past, canceling HBG’s publication of Woody Allen’s memoir in 2020 and amending the return-to-office work in 2022.

In the announcement, they mention “substandard working conditions, overwhelming workloads, and compensation not commensurate with the exceptional success and growth that workers have brought HBG.”

The organizing campaign has taken over 5 years.

In other union news, the workers at Magic: The Gathering – Arena have overwhelmingly voted to form a union, United Wizards of the Coast – CWA (UWOTC).

The USWOTC has asked the Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro management to voluntarily recognize the union by International Workers Day (May Day) which takes place on May 1, 2026.

In their announcement, the union has said they are negotiating for:

• Layoff Protections: Employees currently live in fear of suddenly losing their jobs, with no warning and through no fault of their own.
• Remote Work Protections: Leadership is instituting a mandatory RTO, forcing numerous remote employees to return to a physical office or be forced to resign. This painful choice is splitting our employees between their homes, communities, and the jobs they love.
• Generative AI Protections: Pressure has ramped up from leadership to adopt LLMs and Gen AI tools in various aspects of our work. WOTC lacks a robust AI policy, leaving opportunities for abuse and communicating a level of disrespect for artists and other creatives.
• Sustainable Workload: Employees’ experiences with “crunch” (intense, mandatory unpaid overtime) to meet deadlines vary widely by team and project, with some teams crunching on a regular basis just to get planned work out the door.

They are asking individuals to sign a letter to show their support for the union.

Source: Graphic Policy