TCGPlayer agreed on a severance package with eBay. As workers are laid off by the tech giant, which is moving TCGPlayer to Kentucky, they will be given 20 weeks of pay, among other benefits. Credit: CWA-TCGunion

The TCGPlayer authentication center on South Warren Street, which processes and ships cards used to play games like Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon, will shut down in late August, TCGPlayer’s parent company eBay announced Thursday. 

eBay will be shifting TCGPlayer’s operations to an in-house facility in Louisville, Kentucky, laying off 220 workers from the Syracuse facility. An eBay spokesperson told Central Current the move will allow the company to right-size TCGPlayer and consolidate the logistics infrastructure and expertise found at its campus in Louisville. 

“This was a difficult decision,” company officials wrote in a statement. “We recognize the near-term impact it will have on our employees, their families and the Syracuse community, and we are dedicated to taking care of our people during this transition.”

The shift in operations comes after almost 18 months of grueling contract negotiations between the company and the TCGPlayer union, formed under the Communications Workers of America mantle in 2023. The TCGPlayer union, which came together and was recognized by eBay after an election in August 2023, was the first in eBay’s history. eBay acquired TCGPlayer in 2022. 

Workers, labor leaders, and elected officials representing the Syracuse area locally and in Albany, lamented the loss of hundreds of jobs. 

“Central New York deserves better than a multinational corporation that moves in, acquires a successful start-up, and then moves out of state,” State Sen. Chris Ryan wrote in a statement. Ryan is a Democrat representing the 50th State Senate district, which includes the Syracuse suburbs. He is also the former CWA Local 1123 president. 

“This move not only disrupts the lives of dedicated employees but also undermines the economic stability of our region,” Ryan added. 

Workers said they found out that they were losing their job and that the company would be moving to Louisville at an 8:30 a.m. in-person, all-hands meeting Thursday that included TCGPlayer CEO Rob Bigler. Two workers spoke to Central Current about the meeting. They say they feel blindsided and disappointed by the company’s decision to shutter the Syracuse facility. 

Eric Tillotson, who has worked at the company for almost four years, said he was shocked when he heard the news. Union organizers had just met with company representatives to continue negotiating workers’ first union contract earlier this month, he said. 

“A great deal of the staff, including [managers] outside of our bargaining unit, were blindsided, despite that,” said Tillotson, who works fulfilling card game orders for customers around the world. 

Tillotson and Danny Grant, both of whom have worked the same role at TCGPlayer for almost four years, have also been involved with the union. Both say that while the company has not explicitly blamed the unionization effort for leadership’s decision to leave Syracuse, workers believe their efforts to bargain and have a say in the terms of their employment played a role. 

“I think it played a pretty substantial, if not the primary role in their decision to move, mostly because of the cost of labor, and the fact that the company wants to reach profitability as quickly as possible,” Tillotson said. 

Sen. Ryan echoed Tillotson’s comments in his statement. He referenced instances in which workers have filed unfair labor practice claims with the NLRB in past years as proof of the company’s animosity toward the union.

“The subsequent actions ranging from reported anti-union tactics to this abrupt closure reflect a disregard for the workforce that contributed to TCGPlayer’s success,” Ryan said in a statement. “It’s nothing more than a retaliatory move against the hardworking employees that contribute to the success and profit of eBay.”

An eBay spokesperson said the move was not related to the bargaining process.

Tillotson and Grant said that Bigler told workers at the meeting the company would move to Louisville to lessen costs and achieve profitability.  

“At that moment, I had sat up from my metal folding chair, folded it up, and loudly threw it down on the stone floor and stormed out of the room,” Grant said. 

Tillotson and Grant said achieving profitability is a constant subject of conversation at company meetings. 

eBay officials did not directly respond to a list of questions sent by Central Current, one of which inquired about how exactly the move would help fulfill the company’s goal of profitability. 

An eBay spokesperson wrote in an email that the move to Louisville will give the company access to the logistics infrastructure, location, and expertise needed to sustainably serve and invest in the customer base. 

Tillotson and other local labor leaders say they think moving the company’s operations to Kentucky would be financially advantageous to eBay because of the state’s labor laws and lower wage standards. 

Kentucky is a state with right-to-work laws, meaning that employees can choose whether to join a union at their workplace. 

The state’s minimum wage in Kentucky is $7.25, half of the hourly rate for workers in upstate New York. A recent job post on LinkedIn for a warehouse associate position at an eBay facility in Louisville lists a starting salary of $17.50, but it is unclear if that would translate to other future positions at TCGPlayer.

“I think that their decision came down to the fact that they know that they can pay for an unlivable wage to someone else in another state rather than continue to support their employees who have made them the company that they are,” Tillotson said.

The company will begin laying off workers in waves in the months leading up to the facility’s eventual closure in late August, Tillotson said. 

For workers like Tillotson, the loss of a job feels ruinous. Tillotson makes $18.50 per hour before taxes and consistently struggles to make ends meet. He knows that every month $400 will be hoovered by a hefty private student loan payment. 

Tillotson’s situation is only bound to worsen. The U.S. Department of Education recently announced they will start collecting payments on defaulted federal student loans, something the department hasn’t done since 2020.

“I’m in a very precarious financial situation, and I’m really, really worried about that,” Tillotson said. 

A report compiled by CWA last fall suggests Tillotson’s concerns about economic precarity are shared widely across the company’s workforce. In the report, union officials wrote that economic hardship has forced 66% of TCGPlayer workers surveyed to rely on family, friends, and public assistance to get by. 

The report also shows that a majority of workers feel financially insecure: 78% of workers feel they won’t be able to pay their bills on time.

Tillotson said the company’s decision is frustrating, given that he and his colleagues feel like the company and the union could have reached an agreement in the next three months. 

The company spokesperson for eBay said both sides had already agreed on 54 different tentative agreements. These tentative agreements make up an eventual contract sent to union membership for eventual ratification.

The source of potential disagreement throughout the process remained employee wages, a crucial selling point for workers during the union campaign.

“It really was the big ticket item,” Tillotson said. “We had yet to dig deep into the proper wages articles of bargaining. That is where the fight would have been.” 

The shutdown of the Syracuse authentication center, he said, feels especially bittersweet because of the camaraderie workers built along the way.

“That is the thing that is really going to hurt the most, is to lose that sense of community that we built,” Tillotson said.

Read more of Central Current’s coverage

Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...