We’ve been periodically reporting in on the efforts of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA – that’s the union that represents QA workers who work on titles such as Elder Scrolls Online – to come to a contract agreement with Microsoft. Indeed, the last time the union checked in, it accused the corporation of stalling negotiations. Well, it looks as if the gates have finally been knocked over as CWA has proudly announced that both sides have reached a tentative contract agreement after almost two years of negotiations.

Among the terms in the agreement are an across-the-board wage increase, new minimum salaries for new employees, protections against arbitrary dismissal, full crediting of QA workers in the creation of titles, and assurance of “human-centered AI implementation” at the studio that the union tentatively agreed to in 2023.

Contract explanation meetings will be held for members over the next few weeks, and a ratification vote is expected to be concluded by Friday, June 20th.

Recapping here because this is admittedly confusing: ZeniMax Workers United-CWA formed over two years ago and at the time was the first games studio union at Microsoft (there are several others now, including the WoW team union and the Overwatch team union). The group represents QA testers on the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, among others. It doesn’t include all of the ZeniMax Online Studios workers, i.e., the rest of the Elder Scrolls Online team; they have their own (even bigger) union called ZOS United-CWA. There’s also a separate union, One BGS USA, which represents a broader swath of Bethsoft devs.