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James Hewitt discusses his Salary when working with GW


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I certainly can't change the current system myself alone, but sorry to disappoint : I don't feel "bad" about still buying GW products. Pretty much the opposite.

5 minutes ago, stratigo said:

You are mostly qualifying any criticism to, far as I can tell, feel better about participating in the system. But, also, you don'have a choice to participate or not in any realistic measure, so this tension is all internal here.

No, there's always a choice, but it's indeed more convenient to go with it. Though maybe you're talking about yourself, here. Unless you're an activist trying to end capitalism right now in the streets. ;)

Since I don't work for GW, it's not my role to change their inside or to decide for their workers to unionize or not. Change must come from them. I can however send a mail to their customer service talking about the testimonies and asking about the GW current stance on their employees' wages.

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5 hours ago, Sunshine said:

It was a few thousand above minimum wage at the time and your comment is an insult to shop workers and others like them on minimum wage. 

Whilst his wage was low for the work that he was doing, there are numerous jobs that are as equally unrewarding in the UK with a higher degree of responsibility. 

How is it an insult to anyone to point out that that wage was close to a poverty wage? It's an objective fact, facts aren't insulting to anyone, certainly not to other people on poverty wages. You even confirm it yourself - only a few thousand above minimum wage at the time. Nobody should be getting paid that little. 

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6 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

How is it an insult to anyone to point out that that wage was close to a poverty wage? It's an objective fact, facts aren't insulting to anyone, certainly not to other people on poverty wages. You even confirm it yourself - only a few thousand above minimum wage at the time. Nobody should be getting paid that little. 

...I'm currently paid less than that, you know. And it's not minimum wages in my country...

It's not much, that I totally agree, especially if you're alone. But still : that's not poverty wages.

The real annoyance is cost of life in UK. And if I was living in the capital of my country with ridiculously high rents, I would have trouble too with my current salary...

James was not poor at that time. He said his salary was low, that's the difference. And he managed to renegociate his contract to 20k to work 4 days a week with overtime paid on friday. He said so as well in his tweets.

I'm working full time for less...So I guess I *should* feel insulted here...

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I said it was close to poverty wages, which it was. Please read what was written if you're going to take issue with it. If you live in a different country where that is not close to poverty wages, I don't see how your experience has any relevance. But it's not worth arguing over, it's got nothing to do with the fundamental topic, so I'll leave it here. If you want to feel insulted, that's up to you. 

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2 hours ago, plavski said:

Saying "things are totally better but also the relevant people are contractually forbidden from actually discussing it for fear of punishment" isn't great, honestly. Doesn't give me much faith that things have meaningfully changed or that Rountree is supposed to have saved the day, you know?

Knowing that GW is once again making record-breaking profits emphasises the disparity between what gets raked in and what the actual labour gets. Giving staff a bonus is genuinely nice... but is pretty much a nothing if it doesn't touch on the brutally low wages or what sounds like a horrible and chaotic working culture besides that.

I'd also note that beyond "well everyone is doing it, not discussing salary is a wider UK issue, you're just picking on poor GW by discussing this" having the unfortunate side effect of widening responsibility to the point where no one did anything wrong, it doesn't address these management issues. It's not the worst response I've seen - sadly on other forums there's people calling Hewitt "high and mighty" or outright claiming he's making this up to slander GW - but it's pretty shabby.

@Sarouan It wouldn't be ok for you to be paid that either, were you in the UK. It doesn't make it ok for Hewitt and it doesn't justify the awful treatment he described, Sophie Williams described, or the multiple other ex-GW studio staff and freelancers described in response.

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13 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

I said it was close to poverty wages, which it was. Please read what was written if you're going to take issue with it. If you live in a different country where that is not close to poverty wages, I don't see how your experience has any relevance. But it's not worth arguing over, it's got nothing to do with the fundamental topic, so I'll leave it here. If you want to feel insulted, feel free. 

Lack of empathy is indeed a sad thing.

 

11 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

@Sarouan It wouldn't be ok for you to be paid that either, were you in the UK. It doesn't make it ok for Hewitt and it doesn't justify the awful treatment he described, Sophie Williams described, or the multiple other ex-GW studio staff and freelancers described in response.

I do understand, and I'm certainly not minimising James and Sophie's experiences. I'm glad that their company is working fine and they can live from it.

Just talking about that being "close to poverty wages" is...well...a bit irksome for my point of view given my own salary.

And James did say he was finally able to renegociate his contract to be paid 20k for working 4 days at the end, with friday being paid overtime. Doesn't excuse the ****** excuses he got from GW's HR department or Sophie's treatment for her own experience (though she didn't talk about her own salary at that time, I believe), I totally agree...but that's still not "that close to poverty wages", even in the UK, I believe...

Still, I do recognize it's low...

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7 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

And James did say he was finally able to renegociate his contract to be paid 20k for working 4 days at the end, with friday being paid overtime.

No, he said he suggested to renegotiate it. They turned that suggestion down. 6 months later he had left.

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If you work really hard, put in the hours, your boss might afford a new house or even go up into space. Inspiring and really makes breaking your back for ungrateful execs seem worth it. But maybe, one day, we can be one of those big wigs at the top... The latter part is why this keeps on going because there's no shortage of people willing (or out of desperation/basic needs) to fill the void left by the previous person who's had enough.

Exec culture in general is about making ALL the money, not just great money, over a short period of time and then move on to a different company to earn MORE than all of the money. Rinse and repeat. Just follow the money and the pattern is always big wages and big bonuses for the execs and as little as possible to the rest of the workforce.

GW didn't get to where they are by playing nice. Even the CDPR Red turned out to be an abusive employer who would have continued pushing their employees well past their breaking point if they could have gotten away with it. If a company that well regarded (well, used to be) hide that level of abuse and mismanagement... Lately, there's that lawsuit against Activision Blizzard. Which horrifying to read about but also good that there's real action being taken.

I'm fully aware that GW is not a single entity and there's passionate (and apparently underpaid) people there. Calling stuff out which is abusive and/or unethical is still important, and it does not diminish the wonderful and creative stuff they create, because if we don't there's no reason at all for them to care. The more instances of where they do getting called out, the better.

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9 minutes ago, Heijoshin said:

No, he said he suggested to renegotiate it. They turned that suggestion down. 6 months later he had left.

Hmmm...Did they ? Ah right he likes to joke a lot...I guess that was hinted by "Apparently, the problem wasn't "we only have overtime budget". He made a joke proposal, in fact.

Heh. I took him seriously on that one. Joke's on me.

Yeah, then I assume he was working full time before for that amount. My bad.

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Wonder if it's a coincidence that they just put out a thing about paying all their employees a 5k bonus. Not suggesting that the bonus itself was prompted by these revelations - companies like GW don't move that fast - but I do wonder if they hastened the PR release to try to get ahead of the negative press. 

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14 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Wonder if it's a coincidence that they just put out a thing about paying all their employees a 5k bonus. Not suggesting that the bonus itself was prompted by these revelations - companies like GW don't move that fast - but I do wonder if they hastened the PR release to try to get ahead of the negative press. 

I don't really think so...the Guardian isn't especially read by people who follow tweets about GW's salary policies.

And this was posted in their investissor section of the GW website - that's clearly not the target reading forums about toysoldiers as well.

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1 hour ago, Sarouan said:

Lack of empathy is indeed a sad thing.

 

I do understand, and I'm certainly not minimising James and Sophie's experiences. I'm glad that their company is working fine and they can live from it.

Just talking about that being "close to poverty wages" is...well...a bit irksome for my point of view given my own salary.

And James did say he was finally able to renegociate his contract to be paid 20k for working 4 days at the end, with friday being paid overtime. Doesn't excuse the ****** excuses he got from GW's HR department or Sophie's treatment for her own experience (though she didn't talk about her own salary at that time, I believe), I totally agree...but that's still not "that close to poverty wages", even in the UK, I believe...

Still, I do recognize it's low...

It's basically what is called a Living Wage, which in theory is what somebody can survive on.

Unless he owned a property over half his wages will have gone on rent and council tax. If he had £100 saved a month after everything else he will have been living exceptionally frugally.

Of course this is all relative. Living in the UK he gets by law free healthcare and about 3 x the average amount of holidays as someone living In the US.

But relative to other jobs, for the return his work will have brought the company, its derisory. Working at a check out pays only marginally less.

As I say frequently on here-

GW is a company whose sole aim is to make money.

They are not your friend. 

Their relationship with you exists as a customer. Their relationship with staff exists as a mechanism to generate profit, for a minimal outlay of remuneration of labour. Any argument that its "industry average" is absurd because there isnt a rival peer doing the sane as GW do in the same Galaxy. 99% of their "competitors" are the equivalent of cottage industries. They're lemonade Stands to GW's coca cola. Most companies cant afford to pay anything more than living wage for the majority of their staff. GW are a FTSE 250 company, and should be paying FTSE 250 wages to people directly responsible for making them the sort of profits Blood Bowl et al do.

The GW "community" is a mechanism to create hype to sell their product. Your interaction with community initiatives and channels is simply a means of adding volume to this traffic.

I dont ever buy anything from GW from this reason, always through third parties, and then to support local businesses.

If GW was the only place from which to buy GW stuff, I wouldn't do it. They're a predatory hyper capitalist entity. They're allowed to be, of course. But I'm never in any doubt as to what it is that enables AOS et al to exist. Aint pretty.

 

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9 hours ago, Sunshine said:

It was a few thousand above minimum wage at the time and your comment is an insult to shop workers and others like them on minimum wage. 

Whilst his wage was low for the work that he was doing, there are numerous jobs that are as equally unrewarding in the UK with a higher degree of responsibility. 

It's not an insult. Poverty is not a shortcoming or personal failure, it's an affliction.

Nobody in the UK who has to pay for their accommodation lives on either of those wages happily. It's literally enough to pay for subsistence living in any city, and no more. By which I mean- Bills and food. You'd struggle to afford a hobby budget for *anything* - like, GW, or computer games, or going out for a few drinks, or a takeaway- of more than £50 per month and only then if you had a very thrifty approach to food.

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Quite right. The turning of the descriptive term "poverty wage" into some sort of "insult" plays right into the hands of the people who want to keep you in poverty in order to enrich themselves. They want you to feel sensitive about the amount of money you make, and they want you to react angrily to anyone who suggests that that amount of money is not enough to support a reasonable standard of living, because then you are internalizing your own oppression. 

The amount of money you make has no impact on your moral worth as a person. 

 

 

 

Edited by yukishiro1
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19 000 £ isn't that much in Sweden. But It's still better than what pensioners usually earn.

I'm not shocked that it could be low, but it's sad since we pay a premium price for our hobby. I hope they pay better today and that the employees have ok working hours and expectations for that pay.

In the end, if i really did love a job and could live on it, I wouldn't mind. But not getting a raise every year, especially if you helped make something really successful, then I would search for something else too.

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5 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I can't imagine people freely shilling a billion-pound profit company for the way it pays so many of it's employees borderline minimum wage, but here we are.

 

I wonder if part of it is not wanting to risk the dream that 'you too could be part of the badly paid work force, if you just paint hard enough and love the company even harder'.



£20k is still well above what an awful lot of people earn in the UK though, especially when doing something you love. I'm not without sympathy, but the difference between that and actual minimum wage staff who are doing hard graft full time for £12k is shocking. Both are dreadful wages for sure, but that is how corporations get away with it- there will always be someone worse off that will do the job for less than we'd expect. 

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6 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

How is it an insult to anyone to point out that that wage was close to a poverty wage? It's an objective fact, facts aren't insulting to anyone, certainly not to other people on poverty wages. You even confirm it yourself - only a few thousand above minimum wage at the time. Nobody should be getting paid that little. 

Firstly, it isn't an objective fact. The wage needed for a person to avoid poverty will depend on their individual circumstances. 

Secondly, the term poverty wage has negative connotations and that is why the phrase 'national living wage' is often used. The term poverty wage is demeaning to those who are on it and implies that they are in poverty where as per point 1 they may not be. You are wrongly defining people's circumstances on their behalf by using that phrase.

Thirdly, he was on around 19k at the time and the national living wage is currently around the same amount. He was therefore above the national living wage or the ill-conceived phrase 'poverty wage' at the time.

I do agree that most people are underpaid for the work that they do as the rich few have an unnecessary proportion of the world's wealth. However, I am not sure this is the best place to discuss my negative views on the West's current approach to capitalism.

On an off topic note, I do wonder if we will reach technological singularity in my time and if so how this will affect employment and wealth.

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1 hour ago, RexHavoc said:

I wonder if part of it is not wanting to risk the dream that 'you too could be part of the badly paid work force, if you just paint hard enough and love the company even harder'.



£20k is still well above what an awful lot of people earn in the UK though, especially when doing something you love. I'm not without sympathy, but the difference between that and actual minimum wage staff who are doing hard graft full time for £12k is shocking. Both are dreadful wages for sure, but that is how corporations get away with it- there will always be someone worse off that will do the job for less than we'd expect. 

Whilst I agree with your post, minimum wage for someone over 25 working full time was around 15k a year at the time and is currently around 17.5k.

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2 hours ago, Nos said:

It's not an insult. Poverty is not a shortcoming or personal failure, it's an affliction.

Nobody in the UK who has to pay for their accommodation lives on either of those wages happily. It's literally enough to pay for subsistence living in any city, and no more. By which I mean- Bills and food. You'd struggle to afford a hobby budget for *anything* - like, GW, or computer games, or going out for a few drinks, or a takeaway- of more than £50 per month and only then if you had a very thrifty approach to food.

Whilst I also agree with the sentiments you are trying to portray, my wife earns less than the national living wage and I find your post dictating what we can afford not only highly inaccurate but offensive. We own a house, car, have 2 kids, can afford holidays to Asia each year, and can afford numerous hobbies for both ourselves and our kids. Whilst this is because I earn a comfortable salary myself, it shows that just because my wife is on a salary below the national living wage, she is not in poverty. The phrase poverty wage is therefore not only an inaccurate phrase but is demeaning as through its use you are categorising people.

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5 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Whilst I agree with your post, minimum wage for someone over 25 working full time was around 15k a year at the time and is currently around 17.5k.

That sounds about right to be honest. I left the UK in 2015, after tax & NI was taken off I was left around about £12,500pa and I was on higher than minimum wage at the time.

Even with the adjustments at £17k now, I would had dropped my job instantly- which was gruelling and didn't come with any of the perks of working for a hobby company, and I'd not at all sniffed at getting 20k for the privileged.

I still think the wage is awful, but I can honestly see how they get away with it. There are more than enough people in the UK that have spent a good portion of their life being told they can do anything they want to as long as they work hard enough- only to find that they will be massively underpaid for trying to do so, especially when you work for big corporations.

We have seen a mass exodus of staff from the studio team in the past few years, but not to defend GW- but it can't all be bad. I know one person that has worked for them since the 90s and is still very happily working for them. I suspect he is paid decent enough for what he does. If current staff are not allowed to talk about it we will only ever have a bunch of twitter horror stories to go on.

I think GW does a lot of stuff worthy of criticising, but £20k wages isn't the worst thing by far, even if it is pretty naff.

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37 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Whilst I also agree with the sentiments you are trying to portray, my wife earns less than the national living wage and I find your post dictating what we can afford not only highly inaccurate but offensive. We own a house, car, have 2 kids, can afford holidays to Asia each year, and can afford numerous hobbies for both ourselves and our kids. Whilst this is because I earn a comfortable salary myself, it shows that just because my wife is on a salary below the national living wage, she is not in poverty. The phrase poverty wage is therefore not only an inaccurate phrase but is demeaning as through its use you are categorising people.

She's not in poverty because she's married to someone who makes more than her whose income she has access to, right? Sounds like she's making a poverty wage to me, if that's all that's giving her access to those luxuries. As has already been stated, you're buying into some pretty nasty classist propaganda if you think being categorized as earning a 'poverty wage' is a personal attack :/

This just seems like tedious semantic quibbling when you seemingly already agree that these are very poor wages by any name

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I would also say that squabbling semantics on exactly how poor a wage he was getting (I was earning more in my last frontline customer service job and they would hire almost anyone ;) ) is missing the major points of how they were treated and the toxic culture that enabled it.

Perhaps on a more equitable wage that wouldnt be so bad but doing it all for ****** all money is certainly bad.

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I wonder which union would cover GW creative employees in the UK. I have no doubt that GW would fight any unionisation drive, with that same old “we’re a family” schtick that you get at so many corporations these days.

As for all those arguing that describing a wage as close to a poverty wage is a personal attack… are you serious? None of the examples provided here make any convincing argument that this is an inaccurate description, some of them are absolutely laughable. It’s not a poverty wage because it wouldn’t be a poverty wage in another country!? Uh… sure, and if my aunt was a man she’d be my uncle. So what? There is no universal measure of poverty. It’s not a poverty wage because my wife earns less than than and we still enjoy many luxuries (because I earn a high salary)? Are you kidding me? Would your wife be able to afford all that on her own? Obviously not. 
 

Some people need to get a grip. If you’re not earning enough for the work that you do, it’s your boss that’s insulting you, not people on the internet pointing out that wages are low.

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