United Paizo Workers, a group of people who work on Paizo tabletop games like Pathfinder and Starfinder, were named the winners of the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming ahead of Gen Con in Indianapolis, Indiana on Wednesday night. The group of union workers, who were among the first to unionize in either tabletop or digital gaming, accepted the award at a ceremony that’s considered “the unofficial start of the Gen Con Indy convention,” according to the Diana Jones Award website.
The Diana Jones Award has been given out annually since 2001, a prize that can be awarded to just about anything: a “person, product, company, event, movement, concept or any other thing that has, in the opinion of its committee, best demonstrated the quality of ‘excellence’ in the world of hobby-gaming in the previous year,” according to the website. For instance, the first winner was Wizards of the Coast founder Peter Adkison, while last year’s award went to Coyote & Crow, a role-playing game that “imagines an alternate universe that exists outside of the horrors of capitalism,” created by Cherokee designer Connor Alexander.
This year, the finalists were inspiring and impactful: Adepticon, the fan-run Midwest miniatures gaming convention that hosts the North American Golden Demons; Ami Baio, game designer of Pink Tiger Games; Fastaval, an RPG and board game convention held in Denmark; TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida, an itch.io bundle that raised $283,977 for trans advocacy and support groups in Florida; and, of course, the United Paizo Workers, tabletop gaming’s first workers union.
“To be recognized among such industry luminaries is a testament to the power and importance of worker solidarity in this industry,” United Paizo Workers steward and Paizo organized play coordinator Alex Speidel told Polygon in June when the finalists were announced. “We hope this nomination shows others in the industry that not only is advocating for yourself and collective action in the workplace possible, but that doing so is a mark of honor among your peers.”
United Paizo Workers announced its intention to unionize in October 2021, but an effort to organize was in place for a while before. The union cited “a pattern of inconsistent hiring practices, pay inequity across the company, allegations of verbal abuse from executives and management, and allegations of harassment ignored or covered up by those at the top” as a part of the motivation to organize. The company chose to voluntarily recognize the union less than a week after the workers’ announcement. United Paizo Workers were among the first tabletop and digital gaming companies to unionizes alongside workers at Cards Against Humanity. Since then, the unionization movement in games has continued to grow, with many citing United Paizo Workers as inspiration.
But it was not an easy road toward a bargaining agreement; it took 601 days to ratify a contract between Paizo and United Paizo Workers.
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