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EA Faced With Another Employee Lawsuit

Posted by Zonk on from the getting-old dept.

GamesIndustry.biz has the news that EA has been slapped with another employee-filed lawsuit. He's part of the engineering staff, and feels unfairly targeted by the "creative staff" laws in CA. From the article: "...in the midst of a storm of unwanted publicity about EA's employment practices, and provoked a response from the firm's vice president of human resources, Rusty Reuff, who admitted that 'as much as I don't like what's been said about our company and our industry, I recognize that at the heart of the matter is a core truth.'"

5 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Employment Opportunities! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I work at EA and can (anonymously, at least) vouch for claims like this. After the first wave of lawsuits and the EASpouse publicity, EA immediately set out with an attempted rectification of thier employment practices by distributing an employee satisfaction survey and openly claiming about thier search for ways to reward hard working employees.
    I can't say they aren't actually trying to end this negative situation, but it's obvious from our point of view that they're attempts are fueled by the desire to quell the bad press and save face, as opposed to actually compensating overworked employees and resolving the issues.
    Obviously the company sees the issue differently than the press and public, and is trying to rectify issues for the wrong reasons. (i.e. Cure bad press, not employee hardship). I believe they will only put forth the effort enough to stop thier people from complaining publicly, before returning to the tyrancy and money-mongering.

  2. Part of the problem by DrZombie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the biggest problems in the software industry, speaking as someone who's been here for a modest amount of time (6 years, since my sophomore year of college, full-time), is that management sets unrealistic timelines. If more upstream design was done (sorry, reading Code Complete for the 2nd time) then they could develop more realistic schedules. Enough with the 90% floating requirements, enough late-schedule additions. Engineer for quality from inception, and they could come out with better games on realistic schedules with happy, healthy employees who will be a value added in the sheer amount of innovation they can bring to the table when all aspects of their lives are balanced (for some, this is an impossibility, and businesses take advantage of this neurotic behavior, which I think is unethical).

    1. Re:Part of the problem by jbolden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There is a myth that corporate America does a good job using resources. Most companies are a waste of this nation's economic capital, and have terrible rates of return (when the earnings statements are looked at either long term or with a sceptical eye since fraud is now a major problem). In the 1960s when companies were far less concerned about getting the most out of each employee but rather built institutional structures to create productivity large business was so effective that there was a great deal of fear that small business wouldn't exist at all. And that's with employees having 2 hour lunches where they drank and an 8 hour work day. Today the structures aren't in place everyone works 60 hours a week and gets and gets nothing done.

  3. $91840 salary + overtime? by JavaLord · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you read the article, you can see that the law they are trying to dispute is only applied to programmers who make $41 an hour or more. If you add that up, it means these programmers make at least $91,840 a year.

    Now if you are a programmer, (I am) I'm sure you work some overtime during crunch time. Do you get overtime for it? I know I don't, it's expected that I work until the job is done. Do you make $91,840? I don't think too many programmers are making 91k nowadays.

  4. QA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The whole industry needs an overhaul, and quick.

    Since this has turned into a complain-fest, it's my turn. I know programmers have it bad, but what about the QA department? I work at a company (see below) that does not pay its QA Leads OT. This wouldn't be that big a deal if we got paid a descent salary to start with or maybe had some perks. During Crunch-time last year, I worked 25 days in a row (12-hour days, mind you) and didn't get so much as a "thank you", much less proper compensation. It got to the point that my testers where making more than me a week.

    At least at EA, they have such perks as a free employee gym, free meals if you have to work OT, employee soccer/basketball fields, etc. At THQ (supposedly the second biggest publisher), we don't even have a freaking game/break room to relax in. It boggles my mind that a company that makes 600 million dollars a year can't afford to pay OT to those who deserve it. I'm not a greedy guy, but pay us what we are owed, before you are forced to.

    Ahhh, I feel a bit better now that I got to vent.