Nintendo hit with second workplace complaint

Nintendo of America has been hit with its second workplace complaint in five months, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

Mario is synonymous with video games, having been the face of Nintendo for decades. Picture: AFP

The United States National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, received a second workplace complaint against Nintendo in only five months. Filed earlier this week, the complaint alleges that Nintendo enforces “coercive rules” and retaliates against employees engaging in “protected activity”.

Originally spotted by NME, these allegations are fairly broad and could mean that workers are unable to freely talk about their working conditions or discuss forming a union. It follows after the first complaint back in April of this year, which had a contractor allege that their employment had been terminated after asking questions related to unionisation.

Nintendo fervently denied these accusations, stating that the employee was terminated due to leaking “confidential information”, and that the company was unaware of any unionisation attempts.

Speaking to Axios in May, many current and former Nintendo employees and contractors have been speaking up about their experiences working for the Mario developer. One contractor, who worked in the customer service centre, recalled how she couldn’t even go to her grandfather’s funeral: “I was told that if I went to his funeral, I wouldn’t have a job when I came back.”

Nintendo is well known for its selection of kid-friendly games. Picture: AFP

All of these accounts refer only to Nintendo of America, which staffs a significant amount of contractors. Many of these contractors have worked for the company for years, without any pipeline to becoming full-time employees or enjoying full-time benefits.

Discussions of unionisation are rare within the company, with only a single introductory attempt shut down in 2014 after one of Nintendo’s partners, Parker Staffing, fired off an e-mail encouraging workers to think of Nintendo as a family and that organising was unnecessary — a common union-busting tactic.

Nintendo has not publicly commented about the allegations, nor has it responded to the second workplace complaint as of this writing.

There’s plenty of other Nintendo news as well — a new Nintendo game will feature an ‘angel mode’ to reduce nudity, so you won’t be embarrassed when you play it in public. Nintendo also wants to trademark ‘NSW’ for their line of consoles, but that could run afoul of another NSW — New South Wales, of course.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.