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 union at TCGPlayer, one of the most prominent retailers of trading card games in the world, and eBay struck a deal Monday on a severance package as the company continues to march toward its August move to Kentucky. The move will result in 220 workers losing their jobs.

Workers, unionized under the Communication Workers of America banner, negotiated the severance agreement with representatives of eBay, TCGPlayer’s parent company over the course of four bargaining sessions in the past two weeks, workers say. 

The severance package negotiated by both parties comes after workers called for a boycott on the company’s products at the end of May. The union wanted to use the boycott, plus community pressure stemming from community rallies to secure a favorable send off for the 220 workers who will be losing their jobs in August. 

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The move to Kentucky, workers say, was confirmed in a meeting that included all workers and CEO Rob Bigler, who said TCGPlayer was unprofitable and that the move to Kentucky would help consolidate eBay’s operations.

Under the severance agreement shared by workers Monday, TCGPlayer employees would receive 20 weeks of severance pay with an additional $2.50 per hour added to their current wage. Other perks include seven months of continued mental health benefits, a $1,250 ratification bonus for unionized workers, and six months of insurance through COBRA — or the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. COBRA is a federal program that allows workers who lose their job-based insurance coverage to continue for a limited time.

That 20-week period is double what the company had offered workers as of the end of May, when Central Current reported the company had offered workers 10 weeks of full-time pay and four months of health insurance coverage.

For workers like Eric Tillotson and Danny Grant, doubling the period of severance and negotiating increased wages feels like a win in a relationship with eBay where victories were hard to come by. Especially, they said, when it came to negotiating workers’ first union contract, an ordeal that dragged on since 2023 and ultimately never came to fruition

“I was expecting eBay to just stonewall us as they have for our entire time bargaining,” said Danny Grant, who has been working at TCGPlayer for around four years. “So us being able to get over double what they were initially offering is very exciting.”

Grant and Tillotson will be getting around $21 per hour under the severance agreement.

“It’s really just upsetting,” said Grant, who will be part of the first wave of layoffs at the company on June 20. “We’re all just getting through it to get our deserved severance, which is a significant amount of money for most if not all of us, but we’re all losing our little safe community.”

As Tillotson continues to work through his last shifts at TCGPlayer, he said the crushing feeling of getting close to negotiating a contract only to have the company move away with almost no notice lingers.

“I still hold true that I believe this was done to crush our union,” he noted. “I don’t think that it was the only option they had. I just think it’s the option that they had that would ensure they could consolidate the most power and pay their workers the least. That is very unfortunate.”

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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...