Wizards of the Coast has refused to recognize the creators of Magic: The Gathering (and all of Studio X), and Dungeons And Dragons joining the United Wizards of the Coast - CWA union that was formed earlier this year.

The news was shared by the United Wizards of the Coast twitter account, a week after it was announced that the Studio X and Dungeons and Dragons teams were wanting to form a union with the Communications Workers of America, along with the MTG Arena union that formed earlier this year. In their post, they state that Wizards informed them yesterday that they wouldn't recognize the D&D or Studio X units of the union ahead of a vote for unionization. 

This follows Wizards of the Coast declining to voluntarily recognize the original formation of United Wizards of the Coast - CWA by the MTG Arena team until required due to a vote, and the National Labor Relations Board. The United Wizards of the Coast union is asking  for people who support their right to unionization to sign their petition, to show management the public support that the workers have, and thank everyone for all the support that they have shown. 

One might wonder why all this action has happened this year with unionization of Wizards of the Coast employees, first with the Arena team, and now the main development teams at the company. One core reason for it is that Hasbro has been laying off a lot of people, and those layoffs have hit various Wizards of the Coast employees, despite the fact that Wizards of the Coast has been bringing in record profits, and is by far the most profitable part of Hasbro. 

Additionally the union is seeking protection from AI. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has been enthusiastic about it, publicly speaking about how he uses the highly contentious, energy and water intensive technology a lot in personal projects including several Dungeons and Dragons campaigns he DMs. He has also said they use generative AI to help make toys for Hasbro, but due to player feedback hasn't pushed for it in Wizards of the Coast products. The union says that leadership has been pushing them to adopt LLMs and generative AI, though the stated policy of Wizards of the Coast in MTG and Dungeons and Dragons is to disallow use of generative AI.

The union is also seeking remote work protections, better healthcare, and full ownership of what they create outside of work, as currently Wizards of the Coast has a policy that it can claim ownership over any IP created by employees... even if that is completely unrelated to their work.

We will continue to monitor the situation regarding United Wizards of the Coast - CWA and provide more information as it comes out.