Ubisoft Barcelona workers will strike six times in three weeks after the studio cut 51 jobs

Staff at Ubisoft Barcelona are putting down tools. Workers at the studio have called six strikes over the next three weeks, organized through the Video Game Union Coordinating Committee, after Ubisoft confirmed it is cutting 51 jobs at the studio.

The walkouts are set for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, starting June 30 and running through July 16. That is six separate strike days across three weeks instead of one continuous stoppage, which keeps pressure on the company while letting staff keep showing up the rest of the week.

What the cuts are

The 51 layoffs come out of the restructuring Ubisoft announced earlier in June. According to the union, that is about 28% of Ubisoft Barcelona, so this is not a trim around the edges. It is more than a quarter of the people who work there. Reporting on the restructuring says the studio is being pointed at Rainbow Six going forward, away from the support and co-development work it has done on other Ubisoft games.

Barcelona is not the only studio hit in this round. Ubisoft also closed Ubisoft Winnipeg and Ubisoft Belgrade, and the company's own restructuring is reported to touch roughly 380 staff in total.

What the workers are asking for

The union laid out five demands tied to the strike. In plain terms:

• Keep the 51. They want a binding new agreement for the studio that guarantees the affected employees keep their jobs.
• A five-year freeze on mass layoffs. The demand is for a commitment that protects the workforce from another collective dismissal process for at least five years.
• Honor the promotions already promised. Internal promotions that were agreed and then frozen by the company should go through.
• Bring back remote work. They want the old model restored, at 60% of the month working from home.
• Unfreeze pay and benefits. The salary improvement plan and the benefits package should be reopened and reviewed.

None of that is exotic. It reads like a workforce trying to lock in job security and the working conditions they say they already had, at a moment when the company is shrinking around them.

Why this one matters

Ubisoft has been cutting for a while, and most of it has happened quietly through closures and "restructuring" language that does the work of not saying layoffs. A scheduled, union-organized strike is harder to wave off. It puts a date on the calendar and a number on the damage, and it does it at a studio with real history inside Ubisoft.

The first walkout is June 30. Whether Ubisoft comes to the table before then, or lets six strike days play out and counts on the Rainbow Six pivot to carry the studio, is the thing to watch.