Austin Kelmore

@austinkelmore

Unionizing the games industry one person at a time. Cofounder of @gameworkers.co.uk, @gameworkersolidarity.com, and @nogamesforgenocide.com. Game worker, rock climber, cat hugger based in Glasgow, Scotland.

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Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· 21d

Be warned, if you go to Elliot Bay Books in Seattle, you will end up enjoying yourself in a beautiful book store and buy lots of interesting looking books. Go in at your own peril.⁩

10 books on a white sheet.

1. Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy
2. Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky
3. Storybook Ending by Moira Macdonald
4. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
5. On Our Best Behavior: The Price Women Pay to be Good by Elise Loehnen
6. The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
7. Generation Care: The New Culture of Caregiving by Jennifer N. Levin
8. How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay by Jenny Lawson
9. Radical Unlearning: The Art and Science of Creating Change From Within by Lewis Raven Wallace
10. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· 21d

12th book read of 2026. Workers' Inquiry: The Politics of a Method - Notes From Below

Workers' Inquiry: The Politics of a Method

Four black and white hands holding a wrench, pencil, spoon. and phone on a blue background of a map.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· 22d

Hello Seattle.

Street art glued to an electrical box.

Two images one saying when do we shoot back?

The other saying No Good Cops.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· 24d

11th book read of 2026. A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine

Book cover for A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

There is someone looking out of a window in space at a spherical object with some building material coming out of it.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· 25d

My chard and zucchini plants are getting huge! I'm loving the vegetable planter this year.

The starts of zucchini next to some carrot greens.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· 26d

Ok, picked out which books I'm taking.

A stack of 8 books with various fiction and non fiction.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jul 11

I mean...

Jameson the orange cat curled on himself so his four adorable paws are all together.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jul 11

He is my nighttime buddy.

Jameson the orange cat curled up on a duvet looking at the camera. He's very cute and you can see his adorable paws.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jul 5

This little guy possibly has high blood pressure, which they measure by putting a little cuff around his tail that inflates and deflates. I guess he matches the rest of family now that he has multiple medical issues he's dealing with, yay?

An orange cat laying on his back with his paws up in the air.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jul 2

Police embody and exercise the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. That means that police rules necessarily authorize violence and grant police tremendous discretion to use it. For example, the Minneapolis Police Department's use of force policy, even after it was revamped in the wake of George Floyd's murder, still allows "[t]the amount and type of force that would be considered rational and logical to an 'objective' officer on the scene, supported by the facts and circumstances known to an officer at the time force was used."

Notice that the policy refers to the amount of force that is "necessary" -defined by a cop's perception of who needs to be put in their place, and how. Illustrating the futility of the new policy, a Minneapolis cop interpreted this to mean that it was necessary to shoot Amir Locke as he lay asleep under a blanket after barging into the apartment he was staying in, on a (supposedly banned) "no-knock" warrant that did not even name Locke.

The doctrine of police discretion argues that the work of law enforcement can only be carried out with preemptive blanket permission to discriminate, use violence, and criminalize as they see fit. As sociologist Brendan McQuade says, "Police must be unencumbered from anything that actually limits their power, capacity, reach, and violence." Likewise, because they cannot possibly respond to every single violation of law, cops also claim discretion to decide who and what presents the greatest threat at any given time, when or whether they should act, and how.

While Department of Justice consent decrees seek to promote "constitutional policing," there is very little in the way of legal limits that can actually be enforced. Most police violence is what New York Times columnist Charles Blow describes as "awful, but lawful." Contrary to the story we are told about the law acting as a check on police power, in fact, the law condones, facilitates, and promotes police power. As David Correia and Tyler Wall, authors of Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police, put it: "[P]olice officers are [the] law's violence workers. It is the violence of police ... that both makes and preserves law." As a result, there is little relief to be found in the law. Instead, the law justifies the broad license for violence afforded to police by appealing to the need for order.

From "Counselors, Not Cops" to Police-Free Schools

Police presence in schools dates to the late 1930s, coinciding with conservative anxieties and desire to control the rise of leftist ideologies, including anti-war and pro-labor sentiments. As racial integration of neighborhoods increased, the justifications offered for putting cops in schools included "property protection," "improving police community relations," and targeting "dangerous delinquents" and "undesirables" who were accused of "corroding school morale." Police presence was intended to promote "good citizenship" through "Officer Friendly" programs, and quell student organizing against segregation and for quality education.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jul 1

It's so easy for people at the top to stop crunch and overtime. Really simple in fact! Just in case they didn't know how, I took the time to spell it out for them.

For Those at the Top

The first applies if you are a CEO or executive. Change everyone's contract so they're not allowed to work any overtime. Doing this sets a hard line for everyone to follow and also provides workers a way to push back if anyone ever asks them to do extra hours. Contracts are not a perfect solution because they're difficult and time consuming to enforce when companies mistreat workers, but this is still a good step forward.

If you have any workers that were previously being paid for overtime, do an analysis to make sure they're being paid a living wage without the overtime. One of the major reasons low paid workers feel they need to work overtime is the extra money their families depend on, so taking away the extra hours without changing their overall compensation could put workers in an even more precarious situation.

Lastly, go over all of the company's policies and remove or change any of them that incentivize overtime. Changing people's habits takes time, so be prepared to both model the behavior yourself and address any issues that come up.

I put this section here to give people at the top an easy path to end overtime, but truth be told, I don't think many will take it. If they really wanted to, they would have done it already. If anyone reading this is a CEO or executive at a game company and wants to be spiteful and prove me wrong, I would love for that to happen. Please do.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jun 19

10th book read of 2026. Revolutions of Our Times - The Peoples Want

A picture of the book cover for Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto by The Peoples Want

A burgundy background with the title, subtitle, and author in different colored text.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jun 18

I'm excited about the books I picked up at Labor Notes.

Six books on a table.

1. Decolonizing Money by Julio Linares
2. Unions of Our Own by Daniel Gross
3. Graphic Liberation: Image Making and Political Movements by Josh MacPhee
4. No to Nuclear by Linda Pentz Gunter
5. Keep Going: A Guide to Organizing When It's Hard by Ellen David Friedman
6. Get On The Job and Organize by Jaz Brisack

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jun 13

9th book read of 2026. Ancestors - adrienne maree brown

The book cover for Ancestors by adrienne maree brown.

A dog is looking at the building in Detroit in the distance.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Jun 1

These Astrantia are my new favorite flowers in our garden.

A couple of brilliant white and pink-ish flowers opening up amongst a backdrop of green plants everywhere.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· May 27

I'm ecstatic about the new art on our wall.

A framed poster of three big cat heads overtop a red flag with lots of cats beneath. The text says:

The purrletarians have nothing to lose but their collars, they have a world to win. WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

Three cats with a communist sign. The text says:

We defend our working way
The right to eat, the right to play
The right to nap in the light of day

Participate in your councils
The democracy of workers,
Farmers, and Communities.

A framed poster of two cats (farmer and baker) holding paws with the text:

International brotherhood of biscuitmakers and allied trades

From field to tummy - building better biscuits

The three framed posters hanging on our wall together.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· May 24

One of my goals with @gameworkersolidarity.com is to show that people are in action everywhere, and have been for a long time.

A chart of worker actions over time with the earliest being 1955 and a giant and sustained spike of actions starting in 2018.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· May 20

I mean, how could these not fix me? They all look fantastic.

Seven books and their titles
1. A Desolation Called Peace
2. Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World
3. Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back
4. Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence
5. The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition: A Cookbook
6. You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult
7. How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· May 20

8th book read of 2026. We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big - Eric Blanc

The cover of the book We Are the Union
How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big by Eric Blanc.

It's grey with big red text for WE ARE THE UNION with the rest of the text being white.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· May 10

This weekend has been pretty great. I climbed outside for the first time since moving to the UK, went for an almost 10k run in a gorgeous park, built a cat puzzle with my favorite person, played online games with friends, and attracted real life cats to my garden with the cat mint we planted.

A bunch of climbing gear on the ground beneath a giant quarry wall we were about to climb.

A gorgeous scene of a river with a walking bridge going over it and greenery everywhere.

A finished puzzle of lots of cats and books and a sitting chair. A poster on the wall in the puzzle says: "All you need is love. And a cat. OK, and maybe a good book. But that's it. Really."

A cat blissfully sitting in the sun in between multiple cat mint plants.

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Apr 27

When asked what kind of hobbies one should take up, Titanium Court suggests these. I can definitely get on board with at least one of them.

A picture of the game Titanium Court where there's a pixelated match 3 board with lots of different tiles, a pixel art person in a suit, and the text that says "Y'know, stuff like card collecting, labor organizing, opening jars, turning the thermostat up really high, rearing children?"

Austin Kelmore@austinkelmore· Apr 27

I'm glad the crypto part of the games industry seems to have withered away, and I'm eagerly anticipating the AI industry doing the same. arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/...