Microsoft posted $133.7 billion in net profit this year. Up thirty-one percent. Then they fired 3,200 Xbox workers, some of them in three-minute phone calls from Montreal. Fifth round of layoffs in three years. The gaming division pulled in $21.8 billion and added two hundred million players. The people who built the games those players showed up for got a call shorter than a cigarette break telling them September is their last month.
Hundreds of those workers are CWA union members who just organized and are fighting for first contracts. Microsoft started cutting while negotiations were still open. The union filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB. Workers held “Save Our Devs” rallies in nine cities this month. Microsoft held an earnings call. The company cleared a hundred and thirty-three billion dollars in profit and decided the people who make the product are the cost to cut. The earnings call lasted longer than the phone calls that ended those careers.