Radio Hour: A Grab is Better Than a Click, and a Treat is better than a Trick, feat. Eryk Sawicki

Episode 44 of the Rascal Radio Hour welcomes Eryk Sawicki of Peregrine Coast Press to elaborate on the big union news coming out of Wizards of the Coast over the past two weeks. Eryk brings his experience with the IWGB and other tech unions to bear on the difference between voluntary and statuatory recognition, different kind of protections offered by unions, and the recent strides labor groups have made within tabletop companies from the US and the UK.

Later on, the trio sing the praises of print media while also opining the state of shipping anything physical amidst a growing number of EU regulations — and how arcane their requirements and enforcements are for small publishers. There's also adoration expressed for both old school dungeon delves and weird ways one might play Magic: The Gathering.

The Question Dungeon surprises the crew with a sneak attack. Chase explains how he used a dessert to stay viable in a six-hour game of Diplomacy. Thomas is kitbashing RPG systems. All this and more on the latest hour of Rascal Radio.

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Here's an excerpt:

Thomas: We saw this recently with the Pathfinder union [United Paizo Union], where Paizo had a really bad couple of years, post the Diamond bankruptcy and things like that. And they recently did some layoffs, which included some union members. And basically what the union contract had negotiated was that, in the case of layoffs, there is a very clear procedure laid down for who will get laid off from most junior to senior. But also, if there is an intent to lay off from the company, they will notify the union and give them time to see whether anybody wants to resign in the place of somebody who would be laid offf.

I'm sure the Wizards of the Coast union would also benefit from something like that, some kind of clarity of purpose and how layoffs will function. Even if WotC form this union, that is not the same thing as them having effective control of any necessary spect of the company's functioning. Management is still still so far away, still so remote, still completely profit oriented.

Eryk: Yeah, absolutely. That's a big barrier that management often tends to put up. They think that recognizing the union means, my God, we're becoming a social enterprise. We're becoming a cooperative, and it's anarchy, and anyone can do whatever they want. It's not that. There is still accountability. There are still processes. It just means that somebody, well, the people affected by the choices that you're making are at the table.

The important thing is that the workers obviously want to keep their jobs, right? Nobody wants to just plunder a company and take a massive payout and then dip out. People want to be in a dignified workplace, do work that they care about, and not fear for the security of their jobs.

Chase: Unions within American workplaces are often trying to at least secure some of the stuff that I've found UK workplaces have as a baseline. These things like when a company goes into restructure, they they will have to determine if is equitable work that those affected can do elsewhere. Can you move into a different role, or can we furlough you instead? A lot of states in the US will have what's called at-will employment, which is an agreement — and I'm using scare quotes here — between the worker and management where workers can quit at any time for any reason, but the trade-off is that you can be fired at any time, for ostensibly legal reasions. That does give corporations like Hasbro the ability to execute sweeping layoffs without offering any sort of reasonable justification.

A union is not going to take control of [Hasbro's] billions of dollars, but it will advocate for some clarity as to why resources are being spent the way they are and why not the workers getting this sort of thing. Again, they can't control what the executives do, but they can say, give us a voice at the table to say this doesn't seem fair.

Eryk: In the UK, as part of the negotiation process, you do get access to some of the company financials as well. So there is that inherent transparency of saying, we can't afford this. And then you can look at the sheet and say, well, hang on a minute. We can see that you can. know, dude, You don't need another yacht. Stop buying yachts, please.

Chase: No, they get lonely if they don't have other yachts to keep them company!

Thomas: It's important to point out here that Hasbro is a public company, and some of these big, top line numbers are available. The problem is that the specific team numbers probably will not be. Everyone in those teams knows exactly how much money they're making, and they know how much profit they're contributing. What they don't really know is how much the company is spending on their like healthcare or benefits compared to revenue.