TCGplayer is a leading employer in Syracuse, New York. Its online marketplace for collectible gaming is used by an international community of buyers, sellers, collectors, hobbyists, and more. Authentication Center workers are the backbone of TCGplayer and their labor is essential to the company’s ability to provide quality service to its sellers and customers.

TCGplayer Authentication Center workers have banded together to form TCGunion and join the Communications Workers of America, Local 1123. We are working together to improve our working conditions and provide quality service to the collectible gaming community. We are proud to join the Central New York labor movement and we ask that the Central New York Labor community join us in calling on TCGplayer leadership to sign a neutrality agreement and stop union busting!

To the management of TCGplayer,

As longtime union members, we know that a business is only successful when its workers are successful; just as workers invest themselves in their work, TCGplayer should invest in its workers. We also know that the workers of TCGplayer’s Authentication Center are not only fighting to improve their own lives, but also to raise living standards within the region and across the nation through the example they are setting for others.

The stakes of their struggle are magnified by the recent acquisition of TCGplayer by eBay, the multinational and multi-billion dollar ecommerce giant. These workers are now organizing to become the first unionized sector of eBay’s 10,000-employee workforce. In doing so, they are joining a growing movement of gaming industry unions like ZeniMax Workers United, Raven QA Game Workers Alliance, Vodeo Workers United, Card Kingdom Union, United Paizo Workers, Noble Knight Games United, and Bellevue Mox Organized Workers.

The labor movement of Central New York is well aware of what it means for ordinary workers to make the extraordinary choice to organize in the face of opposition from industrial giants. Our movement’s proud history began with the formation of some of the nation’s earliest labor organizations in the mid-19th century, which helped to set a standard that inspired millions of workers to do the same. Workers of Central New York organized unions to improve work at some of America’s most powerful companies: Verizon, General Electric, General Motors, Carrier, and Allied Corp. These unions were formed in the face of intense union busting from employers.

Less than a week after publicly announcing its unionization and filing for election with the NLRB, TCGunion-CWA has already been forced to file legal charges against TCGplayer management for illegal interference in this organizing campaign. We insist that TCGplayer leadership cease all interference in its workers’ rights to organize and instead follow the lead of Microsoft, Paizo, Noble Knight, and Vodeo by taking the high road in their labor standards.

We join TCGunion-CWA in calling on TCGplayer management to stop union busting and respect your worker’s right to organize free from intimidation by signing a neutrality agreement with TCGunion-CWA. Action to the contrary will be taken as an affront to workers of Central New York and their representative Central New York labor leaders.

Conduct yourself accordingly.