Voltage Entertainment USA, a company best known for their LGBT+ inclusive series of of otome games, has recently fired all 21 of the freelance writers in contract with them after they attempted to unionize. What's more, they've released a rather callous public statement about the event, deriding the striking freelancers several times in the official statement for declining individual negotiation with the company and stating that the writers' claims of being paid below the industry standard were false.
This comes only five days after the workers went on strike, announced July 15th via their "Voltage Organized Workers" Twitter and Tumblr accounts. At the time they announced the strike, the writers also urged those supporting their strike to continue to support Lovestruck and refrain from boycotting the app or sending harassment or disrespectful messages on Voltage's platforms.
Several former freelance writers who'd done work for Voltage in the past have agreed that the company underpaid them and expressed belief that those striking were still getting subpar rates. Despite rejecting this premise, Voltage has, curiously, offered no statements about what kind of rates they do pay freelancers that could clear the matter up more firmly. Others have cited difficult to meet deadlines for producers and writers alike as part of their issues with working for the company.
These concerns go largely unaddressed in Voltage's official statement, which states in the very first sentence that Voltage "now consider(s) this unfortunate situation resolved". The resolution being, of course, that each and every striking freelancer was fired outright. The striking writers were portrayed as being uncooperative in the official statement due to their efforts to leverage collective bargaining against the company.
The official statement pauses, after having devoted several paragraphs to rephrasing Voltage's decision not to recognize VOW as a legitimate union, to praise their internal production team. They write, in their statement about firing the freelance writers, "We would also like to take a moment to clarify for you the work our internal production team does behind the scenes" and proceed to list a number of tasks, from outlining the stories and world building to producing the art for each route, that their in-house team handles.
Immediately following this segment, which seems to have been included to vaguely insist that the 21 freelance writers were no great loss, is a long list of Lovestruck series that will be delayed (totaling to 7 different series) "for the foreseeable future".