United Wizards of the Coast calls out Hasbro CEO over misleading union comments

Workers within United Wizards of the Coast-CWA (UWOTC) condemned Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks’ recent responses to their unionization efforts as “both incorrect and clearly anti-union.” A representative posted a thread to Bluesky that dissected statements largely pulled from a Vertical Slice article that synthesized Cocks’ appearance on WBUR’s Breakfast Club on October 22.

It’s nearly been a month since Wizards of the Coast workers launched a second and third union effort within the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Duel Masters. In that time, Cocks has provided few comments regarding both teams’ intent to unionize. WotC’s initial response, provided to Rascal via email, flatly denied any voluntary recognition and stated that “we are best able to keep building great games and a great place to work by working directly with employees, not through unions. In this regard, Wizards is not neutral on the question of unionization.”

Cocks held a similar position when speaking to WBUR, endorsing a theoretical right to unionize but immediately seeding the field with imagined pitfalls. “I think we're in support of a person's right to unionize and a person's right to have the discussion around it and a vote around it,” he said. “If 60 percent of the people on a team want to unionise, 100 percent of the people have to join the union and have to join collective bargaining. That has implications about how we pay people, how we build benefits, [and] what pace we can do that…”

At 17:40, Chris says, “I think we're in support of a person's right to unionize and a person's right to have the discussion around it and a vote around it.” This is untrue. Wizards and Hasbro have already initiated anti-union tactics by hiring Fisher Phillips, a well-known union-avoidance firm.

— United Wizards of the Coast - CWA (@uwotc-official.bsky.social) November 8, 2026 at 6:00 PM

UWOTC called his speculative support “untrue” on the grounds that both Wizards and Hasbro have retained the services of union-avoidance firm Fisher Phillips. The Georgia-based practice previously assisted WotC in pressuring Magic Arena workers who launched UWOTC earlier this year and were attached to a retaliatory firing case in November 2025. “If Chris Cocks believed in open conversations, he wouldn’t hire a company whose sole purpose is to silence dissent, spread anti-union rhetoric, and discourage union efforts,” UWOTC wrote.

UWOTC committee members told Vertical Slice’s Chris Kerr on October 29 that WotC and Hasbro were actively deploying union avoidant tactics such as ostracizing union leadership and painting members as disruptive to daily operations. "They couch their sentiments in between language like 'We’ve been hearing…' or 'Some employees say they feel…' but their intent is clear: to paint us, the union, as the problem,” the representative told Vertical Slice.

Union members also took umbrage with Cocks’ assertion that the average team member designing  Magic: The Gathering earns roughly $140,000 per year, likely said within the context of  UWOTC’s demand for equitable pay rises. “Our members’ wages are lower than what Chris Cocks shares, and there’s no clear path toward promotions and meaningful raises. Most of our members make less than that while working roles that are critical to our games’ success,” UWOTC stated. The union also claims that transparent wage conversations revealed pay disparity between identical roles and promotion stagnation.

Cocks’ “most blatant lie,” according to union members? “"I love that team. I respect that team.” Here, UWOTC made its clearest pitch for supporting a unionized Wizards of the Coast: “If he respected us as workers, he’d be encouraging us to be fairly compensated and sustainably managed. Instead, he spends his time denouncing our union efforts,” read the post. “He does have concerns about our union, because it represents us arguing for the fair treatment we deserve: fair wages, fair workloads, fair healthcare, fair creative freedoms—all things that make workplaces better.”

The rest of Cocks’ response to WBUR illustrates what the CEO believes is the best corrective for WotC’s workplace woes: continue the billion-dollar business as usual. “I just want to make sure we can innovate and deliver for our consumers as best as possible,” he said. “That's going to be the best way we can not just protect the people who are on the team, but grow the number of people who are on that team; promote that team as rapidly as possible.”

One notable promotion was Dan Ayoub’s elevation to president of Wizards of the Coast. Ayoub has yet to publicly comment on his former team’s active unionization — he served as head of D&D for 18 months before replacing previous president John Hight. UWOTC’s NLRB-sanctioned voting period begins November 10, which means that we will soon have clarity over the future of both unions. 

Rascal has reached out to Wizards of the Coast and the union for comment.