TCGplayer
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.
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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.
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.”
