The official Twitter account for the workers union named the ‘United Workers of Seven Seas (UW7S) revealed on Friday, May 27, 2022, that Seven Seas Entertainment has refused to “voluntarily recognize” the union.

Seven Seas Entertainment (@gomanga) has informed us that it will not voluntarily recognize United Workers of Seven Seas.

— United Workers of Seven Seas (@_UW7S) May 26, 2022

According to Anime News Network, Seven Seas released a statement that they are going forward with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections while looking forward to forming a constructive relationship.

An excerpt of the full statement reads:

We have notified the [National Labor Relations Board] that we are prepared to move forward with an election among an appropriate unit of employees, and we will, of course, abide by the outcome of the election.

Even though the UW7S revealed on Twitter that 32 out of 41 eligible workers at the company were in favor of the union, Seven Seas have stated that they won’t voluntarily accept the Communications Workers of America (CWA) as their only legal representative. They wrote:

We respect the rights of our employees to choose or not choose union representation. While we have been requested by a number of employees to voluntarily recognize the [Communications Workers of America] as their legal representative—without [a National Labor Relations Board] conducted election—we have decided to respect the right of all eligible employees to vote on this issue.

A twitter update by the Union Workers revealed, that the election could range from 4 to 12 weeks (or longer).

In the previous week, the workers of publishing company Seven Seas Entertainment formed a workers union, named the ‘United Workers of Seven Seas (UW7S),’ as they found themselves overworked, underpaid, and inadequately supported among other workplace difficulties.

In their statement, the workers union said that as Seven Seas Entertainment continued to grow rapidly, the workers were forced to shoulder much of the pain that came with it.

United Workers of Seven Seas (UW7S) have come together under #IsekaiIsPossible and made a list of goals they hope to fulfill by unionizing.

Seven Seas Entertainment is an American publishing company located in Los Angeles, California. It was originally dedicated to the publication of original English-language manga, but now publishes licensed manga and light novels from Japan, as well as select webcomics.

This is not the first time the employees in a the anime-manga industry have complained about being underpaid. Recently, a string of voice actors had come to fore asking Crunchyroll to improve the wages that are provided to voice actors for their work.

Source: Twitter, ANN