Wizards of the Coast have missed a deadline for voluntarily recognising the new Magic: The Gathering Arena developer union, according to the latter’s organisers. WOTC bosses have so far replied only to press enquiries, the union workers claim, but they’re confident nonetheless that recognition is “inevitable”.

The developers announced that they had voted to unionise last week, joining the umbrella union Communications Workers of America. Dubbed United Wizards of the Coast—CWA, the new organisation will push for better protections against layoffs, return to office policies, generative AI adoption, and mandatory crunch.

“This isn’t just something that affects Wizards of the Coast,” Magic: The Gathering Arena senior software development engineer Damien Wilson wrote in the announcement release. “It’s how most American workplaces are set up: investor profit above all, even if it hurts those behind the products we all know and love. Unions are the missing counterweight to protect our craft.” The group set a deadline of 1st May for voluntary recognition of their union by Wizards management.

In a statement shared with Kotaku a couple of days later, Wizards acknowledged that they had “received the filing and are reviewing it carefully”, adding that “our employees are the lifeblood of what makes us great, and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every person feels heard, valued, and supported.” They concluded a bit ambiguously that “we appreciate hearing about the needs and interests of our employees through this filing, and will respond through the appropriate process.”

1st May has come and gone, but the union workers say there has been “no direct response” from on high. “Management claims to be committed to ensuring every person is heard, valued, and supported,” reads a new United Wizards of the Coast—CWA statement, published yesterday. “However, when we spoke up about our desire to unionize, they responded only to the press.

“We still maintain that the success of our union is inevitable,” it goes on. “The company has witnessed the tremendous outpouring of support and positive attention that our campaign has received from the public and the press. They have received our voluntary recognition letter with the names of a super-majority of the Arena team. We are confident that we are going to win recognition of this union; it’s only a question of time.”

The group are now awaiting the outcome of a US National Labor Relations Board election petition for union recognition, which is expected in “the coming weeks”. The organisers are calling on people to “please keep up the pressure and continue urging WOTC and Hasbro to do the right thing; they can still choose to voluntarily recognize our union any time before the impending election.”

The MTGA announcement continues a wave of games industry union work over the past few years. Over the past few months, there have been successful unionisation efforts at Hyper Light Drifter studio Heart Machine and Doom creators id Software.