Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Well, historically speaking that's pretty much reversed -- requiring membership to benefit from a union goes all the way back to the origin of unions, because the purpose of unions is to benefit the union members, and while ideally union dues are entirely spent on services for the union members, a certain amount of skimming also goes back to the origins of unions (though there's a line drawing question; people who are doing extra work on behalf of the union deserve fair compensation for their effort, so at what point does this cross the line into profiteering?) Non-profits that support non-members are more properly understood as lobbying groups and/or charities.
I'd love to add more to that particular discussion with details about how unions also often improved conditions for non-members, but I think getting bogged down into the intricacies of unions and their history in the US would probably stray a bit too far from the D&D-centric nature of this forum.
I agree with the earlier sentiment that a widespread, organized drive by consumers to support the unionization effort would be more effective than one or two folks posting here. Which isn't to say "don't bother" or anything of the sort. Just... manage your expectations. And if you really want to be heard, get together with some friends (or make some new ones) who feel similarly and organize an email campaign. As for me personally, I've never felt super comfortable boycotting to support a union unless they specifically ask for it. Tanking sales to support people whose jobs depend on those sales feels... iffy. But hey, I'm not a labor or economics expert or anything, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.
Regardless, I think the folks who work on MTG and D&D are amazingly talented and hard working and they deserve all the support.
You are misinformed. Not all unions in the US follow the model of Hollywood trade guilds like SAG-AFTRA. That's simply not factual.
Also, people who are not a member of a union frequently benefit from them -- for example, if a shop has both union and non-union members, the minimum pay rate established by the union contract will quite often by enjoyed by non-members as well.
In the US, damn near every right we have as citizens in the realm of employment law are the result of unions shedding sweat and very literal blood.
The purpose of a union is to benefit the members. This doesn't mean it doesn't benefit non-members, it frequently does, but that's a happy accident, not a design goal.
SAG-AFTRA doesn't benefit non-union talent.
Need I bring up Hazbin Hotel's transition from YouTube pilot to Amazon series? How much fresh & new yet not able to afford SAG-AFTRA fees talent got shafted in favor of union actors in that process?
But yeah, before the 80s, US unions had a shitton more stability & power. Then Ronald Reagan deregulated EVERYTHING.
I don't think Hasbro will let WotC recongnize any union, especially because Delaware(Where Hasbro is incorporated) feels like the kind of place where nasty Reagan-era "right-to-work" laws effectively ban such.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
When a non-SAG voice actor gets session length protections for vocally stressful material, or has a two-hour minimum recording time-block for payment, why do you think that is? The goodness of clients' hearts?
Unions set baseline standards for industries.
US unions are corrupt to the core.
I have been in a few union shops and have even been an active paying member of a BIG one.
I walked into work one day and was told to vote for our national president. My voting card was already filled out with "my" chosen candidate and it just needed my signature. It was explained to me by several large members of the union that simply not voting would be "problematic".
As I learned later this was just how things were done and members of several other unions told me the very same story about their unions.
Teamsters, United auto workers, Steel workers union, roofers union. All mob run until around the Ron Regan era. Oh do I have stories. Even the people who worked in our local news ,TV and print, confirmed it. Even their unions told them to print the "correct" story,or there would be trouble for everyone. And i witnessed it. A local news team cut off and interview as soon as the picketing union members started to throw rocks and even a firebomb at a managers car. They did not want to make the story about the firebomb because it would mean trouble for them.
No photo evidence means it didn't happen. But as soon as cheap digital cameras and cell phones came about they couldn't hide the evidence anymore.
Way to quote anti-union propaganda right outta Reagan.
Which is recycled from anti-New Deal propaganda.
Also, no photo evidence goes both ways. You have none, either.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
And if that's going to be the standard of proof for this thread, then I suspect no one will be able to prove anything topical.
I'd argue talking points recycled from mandatory anti-union meetings some employers force their employees to attend aren't particularly topical to discussing the efficacy of a single-person boycott of D&D Beyond to support the MTGA union.
The history of unions and the labor movement in the US, their victories, their shortcomings, their real controversies versus the controversies driven solely by anti-union propaganda, and their decline in influence as victims of their own success much like vaccines is a very big, very deep, very fascinating discussion. But it's also wildly off-topic for the D&D Beyond forums. I mean, I suppose someone might want to talk about those things in terms of creating a world with its own history, society, and conflicts inspired by those things, and that could be an interesting discussion, but basing a campaign too closely on real-world topics that people get heated about gets problematic real quick.
For whatever it's worth, I fully support this.
Supporting a product, when you know the people who are making it are being mistreated by the employer, is the equivalent of supporting mistreatment. If Wizards of the Coast employees are pushing back against their employer this publicly, things are probably a lot worse over there than anyone even knows. Employee rights in the US are a joke as it is, most people are less employees and more indentured servants. The US has fallen so far behind when it comes to basic rights, I'm not sure it even qualifies as a free country anymore, and the root cause isn't the government so much as it is the fact that the government is controlled by corporation who are getting away with anything they can afford to get away with. Hopefully, we see more of this type of social change.
It looks like Hasbro may have hired a lawfirm that specializes in union 'avoidance'. Anyone else able to confirm this?
https://bsky.app/profile/uwotc-official.bsky.social/post/3mm5cxcydes2f
Saying Fisher Phillips specializes in “union avoidance” is a bit charged. As a firm, one of their practice areas is advising corporate clients on legal matters related to unions - that can include trying to shut down union efforts, but it also can be representing the employer during collective bargaining.
One thing to note, no matter how things shape out, Wizards was very likely always going to hire a corporate law firm - and it is hardly surprising that they hired one of the big names in the industry. I do not practice collective bargaining law, but some of the other attorneys I work with do. These agreements are incredibly complicated, designed for the long-term, and often have a huge number of unintended consequences and ripple effects that can cause problems for either side if not handled well. Wizards has their own in-house legal team - but their in-house attorneys do not have that kind of experience (at least not in their present jobs), so they were alway likely to hire someone who does.
I am sure the union is going to try and spin this into a propaganda, since a lot of their leverage comes from riling up customers. However, from a purely legal perspective, this is just the way things work. Until there is a firm position from Wizards and the dust settles (since sometimes even “firm positions” are just negotiating tactics), everything else is speculative.
One other thing to note, Wizards really could not do very much on their own - not given the complexities of collective bargaining. A lot of times, hiring a lawyer is the first step to a deal getting struck. This now gives an entity the union can talk with who actually knows what they are talking about and can engage in meaningful, intelligent dialogue on the subject. There is, after all, a reason folks hire lawyers - and high complexity, legally challenging issues like collective bargaining are one of those things where getting lawyers involved can help produce a solution.
This is not a political forum. Whine about it somewhere else.
The current dispute appears to be about union recognition (on the process at https://beta.dol.gov/policy-regulations/unions-collective-bargaining/what-union/forming-union it appears we're at step 4 or 5 of the voluntary recognition process); collective bargaining occurs after the union has already been formed and recognized. I expect this will wind up with an NLRB election because that's what commonly happens (and a company insisting on an election is... not exactly rare or noteworthy). Which does not mean lawyering up is inappropriate, since it's definitely a whole legal process that Hasbro lacks in-house expertise in.
Which the cost is passed along to the consumer which raises how much additional money I will need to spend to keep current with books et. al. Having to hire law firms means the consumer loses out.
Now you have customers that will refuse to buy because they are not supporting unions vs customers who will stop buying because the price had to increase to cover costs of Unions.
In 1926 one can justify workforce safety creating a higher cost. In 2026, that increased cost is no longer justified. Therefore the the consumer is the huge loser no matter the end result.
If WotC were planning on keeping these lawyers on indefinitely then maybe they’d bump up their prices, but I honestly can’t imagine these lawyers staying on after this gets settled. Especially since they already have their own legal team
Hiring lawyers costs money. Not hiring lawyers and making a mistake also costs money. Companies hire lawyers because they expect the cost of hiring the lawyers to be less than the cost of not hiring the lawyers.
Also, if those members who want to unionise feel that WotC are intractable because they're legally incompetent and so can't negotiate? They'll quit, and you'll have no company to provide you with Magic cards and the consumer really loses out. Better to have the lawyers involved and everyone have a working relationship than to keep them out and have everything fall apart.
Is it an unfortunate thing that lawyers need to be involved, soaking up funds that could be better spent on more resources/better wages/etc? Yes. That doesn't mean it's worse than the alternative. And those workers deserve to be able to negotiate on even terms with their employers.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
That's really not how it works
The economics of pricing are very well established at this point. Companies charge whatever maximizes their revenue. It's purely a projection of x (price) times y (sales) equals z (revenue) to get the biggest z
Nobody "passes along costs to the consumer". If they did, prices would come down when companies reduced costs after layoffs, which, lol
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