Ubisoft’s first North American union, located at their Halifax, Nova Scotia studio, was certified on December 18th, 2025. Now, not even a full 30 days later, Ubisoft Halifax is closing.
I hate Ubisoft, but I actually do think this was decided to happen before they unionized and is just bad timing.
Decisions to close studios like this never happen so quickly and usually take multiple months between the time the decision is made to the time the actual closure takes place.
It is possible that the studio caught wind that they were being closed and decided to unionize in order to capitalize on the bad PR. But this is all speculation since we don’t know every detail, and both sides will leave out various details to give themselves an advantageous position in the conversation.
It’s possible but imo unlikely. I know its very different in a lot of ways but Starbucks at least will close a location to “save money” practically day of a successful unionizing vote. A union gets harder to squash the longer they’re around, and more likely to spread to other locations, so companies get pretty trigger happy about shuttering places.
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I hate Ubisoft, but I actually do think this was decided to happen before they unionized and is just bad timing.
Decisions to close studios like this never happen so quickly and usually take multiple months between the time the decision is made to the time the actual closure takes place.
It is possible that the studio caught wind that they were being closed and decided to unionize in order to capitalize on the bad PR. But this is all speculation since we don’t know every detail, and both sides will leave out various details to give themselves an advantageous position in the conversation.
It’s possible but imo unlikely. I know its very different in a lot of ways but Starbucks at least will close a location to “save money” practically day of a successful unionizing vote. A union gets harder to squash the longer they’re around, and more likely to spread to other locations, so companies get pretty trigger happy about shuttering places.
It’s not as though unionization was a surprise for Ubisoft. They probably had plenty of time to prepare.