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A group of video game testers at Microsoft have formed the tech giant's first union, and Microsoft has signed off on it, according to Communications Workers of America, which represents the employees.

The gaming industry has seen a wave of unionization efforts in recent years. Quality assurance testers at ZeniMax Studios pushed to unionize, saying labor issues such as low wages and long hours drove them to organize.

As the economy opened up to women a half century ago, one in three working women was an office employee. As the clerical workforce grew by leaps and bounds, so did a sense of injustice among the women, leading to the founding of the 9 to 5 Movement.

This month, around 300 workers at four Microsoft-owned video game studios across the US are voting on whether to unionize. Jacobin spoke to workers involved in the effort about their organizing and why they want a union.

So far, tech's labor activism has largely moved on the margins of the industry, with Amazon warehouse workers, Apple Store employees and video game QA testers leading organizing efforts, while engineers, product teams and other headquarters staff mostly shied away.

If the unionization vote passes, it’ll be a landmark win for more than one reason: It would create the largest video game industry union in the United States, and the first official U.S. union under Microsoft.

With the seemingly modest step of agreeing not to oppose workers' efforts to unionize, Microsoft has upended long-held assumptions about Big Tech's hostility to organized labor.