A group of Activision Blizzard workers is unionizing
Kris Holt
·Contributing Writer
Fri, January 21, 2022
Call of Duty: Warzone quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard studio Raven Software have announced plans to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA). They have asked the company to voluntarily recognize their group, which is called the Game Workers Alliance. The 34-person unit had the support of 78 percent of eligible workers, according to Polygon.
“We ask that Activision Blizzard management respect Raven QA workers by voluntarily recognizing CWA’s representation without hesitation,” CWA secretary-treasurer Sara Steffens said in a statement. “A collective bargaining agreement will give Raven QA employees a voice at work, improving the games they produce and making the company stronger. Voluntary recognition is the rational way forward.”
Workers have given Activision Blizzard until January 25th to respond to their request, according to The Washington Post. If the company fails to do so, the group will file for a union election through the National Labor Relations Board and, because the workers have a supermajority of votes, they'd be able to formalize the union without voluntary recognition from Activision Blizzard. Should the group approve the union in an election, the company would need to bargain with workers in good faith.
Sixty Raven workers went on strike in early December after Activision Blizzard laid off 12 QA contractors, despite a request from Raven leadership to keep them employed. The workers demanded the company convert all Raven QA contractors into full-time employees. So far, Activision Blizzard has reportedly been playing hardball and declining to meet with with the striking workers. Warzone players have been grousing about the game's bugs, which QA workers are tasked with finding and addressing.
"Activision Blizzard is carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the CWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees," the company told Polygon. "While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union." It added that it has raised minimum pay for Raven employees by 41 percent over the last few years, extended paid time off and converted over 60 percent of the studio's contractors into employees.
The CWA claims Activision Blizzard has "used surveillance and intimidation tactics, including hiring notorious union busters, to silence workers.” Last July, the company hired WilmerHale, a law firm with a history of cracking down on unionization efforts, to review its HR policies.
The Game Workers Alliance said its principles include solidarity, equity, diversity, transparency and sustainability. "Shortened development timelines sacrifice project quality and damage the mental and physical health of our team," it wrote on Twitter. "'Crunch' is not healthy for any product, worker, or company."
Earlier this week, Microsoft announced an agreement to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the biggest deal in video game history. If shareholders and regulators approve the acquisition, which could have enormous ramifications for the industry, the merger should close by June 2023.
In an interview with the Post on Thursday, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer noted that he didn't have much experience with unions personally after working at Microsoft for over three decades. “So I’m not going to try to come across as an expert on this, but I’ll say we’ll be having conversations about what empowers them to do their best work, which as you can imagine in a creative industry, is the most important thing for us," he said.
On Wednesday, Activision Blizzard said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing regarding the planned merger that, "To the knowledge of the company, there are no pending activities or proceedings of any labor union, trade union, works council or any similar labor organization to organize any employees of the company or any of its subsidiaries with regard to their employment with the company or any of its subsidiaries." The week that Raven workers went on strike, Activision Blizzard sent its employees a letter imploring them “to consider the consequences” of signing union cards.
As Bloomberg's Jason Schreier noted, the Game Workers Alliance is the first union within a AAA gaming company in North America. Last month, workers at Vodeo Games formed the first video game union in the US. Management at the indie studio voluntarily recognized Vodeo Workers United. Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive signed a collective bargaining agreement with unions in 2020, while Japanese–Korean publisher Nexon recognized a workers' union in 2018.
Kris Holt
·Contributing Writer
Fri, January 21, 2022
Call of Duty: Warzone quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard studio Raven Software have announced plans to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA). They have asked the company to voluntarily recognize their group, which is called the Game Workers Alliance. The 34-person unit had the support of 78 percent of eligible workers, according to Polygon.
“We ask that Activision Blizzard management respect Raven QA workers by voluntarily recognizing CWA’s representation without hesitation,” CWA secretary-treasurer Sara Steffens said in a statement. “A collective bargaining agreement will give Raven QA employees a voice at work, improving the games they produce and making the company stronger. Voluntary recognition is the rational way forward.”
Workers have given Activision Blizzard until January 25th to respond to their request, according to The Washington Post. If the company fails to do so, the group will file for a union election through the National Labor Relations Board and, because the workers have a supermajority of votes, they'd be able to formalize the union without voluntary recognition from Activision Blizzard. Should the group approve the union in an election, the company would need to bargain with workers in good faith.
Sixty Raven workers went on strike in early December after Activision Blizzard laid off 12 QA contractors, despite a request from Raven leadership to keep them employed. The workers demanded the company convert all Raven QA contractors into full-time employees. So far, Activision Blizzard has reportedly been playing hardball and declining to meet with with the striking workers. Warzone players have been grousing about the game's bugs, which QA workers are tasked with finding and addressing.
"Activision Blizzard is carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the CWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees," the company told Polygon. "While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union." It added that it has raised minimum pay for Raven employees by 41 percent over the last few years, extended paid time off and converted over 60 percent of the studio's contractors into employees.
The CWA claims Activision Blizzard has "used surveillance and intimidation tactics, including hiring notorious union busters, to silence workers.” Last July, the company hired WilmerHale, a law firm with a history of cracking down on unionization efforts, to review its HR policies.
The Game Workers Alliance said its principles include solidarity, equity, diversity, transparency and sustainability. "Shortened development timelines sacrifice project quality and damage the mental and physical health of our team," it wrote on Twitter. "'Crunch' is not healthy for any product, worker, or company."
Earlier this week, Microsoft announced an agreement to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the biggest deal in video game history. If shareholders and regulators approve the acquisition, which could have enormous ramifications for the industry, the merger should close by June 2023.
In an interview with the Post on Thursday, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer noted that he didn't have much experience with unions personally after working at Microsoft for over three decades. “So I’m not going to try to come across as an expert on this, but I’ll say we’ll be having conversations about what empowers them to do their best work, which as you can imagine in a creative industry, is the most important thing for us," he said.
On Wednesday, Activision Blizzard said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing regarding the planned merger that, "To the knowledge of the company, there are no pending activities or proceedings of any labor union, trade union, works council or any similar labor organization to organize any employees of the company or any of its subsidiaries with regard to their employment with the company or any of its subsidiaries." The week that Raven workers went on strike, Activision Blizzard sent its employees a letter imploring them “to consider the consequences” of signing union cards.
As Bloomberg's Jason Schreier noted, the Game Workers Alliance is the first union within a AAA gaming company in North America. Last month, workers at Vodeo Games formed the first video game union in the US. Management at the indie studio voluntarily recognized Vodeo Workers United. Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive signed a collective bargaining agreement with unions in 2020, while Japanese–Korean publisher Nexon recognized a workers' union in 2018.
Activision Employee Group Forms Union, a First in Video Games
Jason Schreier
Fri, January 21, 2022
(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will come with an unexpected and perhaps unwelcome addition: a small group of unionized workers.
About three dozen people who work for an Activision-owned studio agreed to form the Game Workers Alliance Union, representatives for the group said Friday. They asked Activision to voluntarily recognize their union status. It would be the first union at a publicly traded video game publisher.
The group is composed of 34 quality assurance testers at Activision’s Raven Software, a team responsible for ensuring new content for Call of Duty games runs smoothly and without errors. It’s part of the Communications Workers of America, the largest union in the media industry.
A spokesman for Activision said the company is reviewing the request for recognition. “While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement.
For years, people from across the video game industry have proposed organizing as a solution to unhealthy work environments. Burnout is a prevalent issue in gaming, brought on by a culture of overwork, sexism and little job security. Employers have not embraced workers’ flirtations with unionizing, but last month, employees of a small independent studio called Vodeo Games became the first to organize in North America.
Activision has been mired in scandal since California sued the company last summer for claims of sexual harassment and discrimination. Workers at the company began handing out union cards last month, triggering a warning from management that employees should “take time to consider the consequences of your signature on the binding legal document presented to you.”
Workers at Activision’s Raven Software went on strikes starting Dec. 6 in protest of the company’s intent to dismiss a dozen contract testers. Quality assurance testers are generally paid the least of any game developers and are sometimes treated as disposable. At Raven, testers are frequently asked to work overtime and have talked of going nights and weekends for months straight.
The Activision spokesman said the company has over the past couple of years raised minimum compensation for Raven testers by 41%, extended paid time off and expanded medical benefits access to workers and their spouses.
Microsoft said this week that it will acquire Activision for $68.7 billion. Unionization at big tech companies like Microsoft is rare. When a 38-person group of Microsoft bug testers organized in 2014, the company eventually dismissed them.
Management at Activision hasn’t acknowledged the Raven strike or responded to specific requests from the workers, representatives for the Game Workers Alliance Union said.
Jason Schreier
Fri, January 21, 2022
(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will come with an unexpected and perhaps unwelcome addition: a small group of unionized workers.
About three dozen people who work for an Activision-owned studio agreed to form the Game Workers Alliance Union, representatives for the group said Friday. They asked Activision to voluntarily recognize their union status. It would be the first union at a publicly traded video game publisher.
The group is composed of 34 quality assurance testers at Activision’s Raven Software, a team responsible for ensuring new content for Call of Duty games runs smoothly and without errors. It’s part of the Communications Workers of America, the largest union in the media industry.
A spokesman for Activision said the company is reviewing the request for recognition. “While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement.
For years, people from across the video game industry have proposed organizing as a solution to unhealthy work environments. Burnout is a prevalent issue in gaming, brought on by a culture of overwork, sexism and little job security. Employers have not embraced workers’ flirtations with unionizing, but last month, employees of a small independent studio called Vodeo Games became the first to organize in North America.
Activision has been mired in scandal since California sued the company last summer for claims of sexual harassment and discrimination. Workers at the company began handing out union cards last month, triggering a warning from management that employees should “take time to consider the consequences of your signature on the binding legal document presented to you.”
Workers at Activision’s Raven Software went on strikes starting Dec. 6 in protest of the company’s intent to dismiss a dozen contract testers. Quality assurance testers are generally paid the least of any game developers and are sometimes treated as disposable. At Raven, testers are frequently asked to work overtime and have talked of going nights and weekends for months straight.
The Activision spokesman said the company has over the past couple of years raised minimum compensation for Raven testers by 41%, extended paid time off and expanded medical benefits access to workers and their spouses.
Microsoft said this week that it will acquire Activision for $68.7 billion. Unionization at big tech companies like Microsoft is rare. When a 38-person group of Microsoft bug testers organized in 2014, the company eventually dismissed them.
Management at Activision hasn’t acknowledged the Raven strike or responded to specific requests from the workers, representatives for the Game Workers Alliance Union said.
“It’s extremely important that workers have a real seat at the table to positively shape the company going forward,” Brent Reel, quality assurance lead at Raven, said in a statement.
Raven Software testers at Activision Blizzard form the first union at a major US gaming company
Amanda Silberling
Fri, January 21, 2022
Today, Raven Software's quality assurance (QA) department -- which mostly works on "Call of Duty" as part of Activision Blizzard -- became the first union to form at a major U.S. gaming company. With help from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Raven Software testers launched the Game Workers Alliance, which plans to focus on "improving the conditions of workers in the video game industry by making it a more sustainable, equitable place where transparency is paramount," even beyond its own company. The 34-worker unit is asking management to recognize their union during a time already marked by change: on Tuesday, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in one of the priciest tech acquisitions of all time.
Why Microsoft’s $2T+ market cap makes its $68B Activision buy a cheap bet
But on the heels of that historic acquisition, Activision Blizzard has been embroiled in controversy amid ongoing SEC investigations and sexual harassment scandals. Internally, employees started laying a grassroots foundation for worker solidarity through groups like the ABK Workers Alliance. When Raven Software laid off 12 contractors in early December, the team at the Wisconsin-based studio staged a walkout, which has continued for five weeks and counting.
Raven Software QA tester Onah Rongstad told TechCrunch that this incident sparked discussions about unionizing.
"On December 3, about a third of my department was informed that their contracts were going to be terminated early. And this was coming off of a five-week stretch of overtime, consistent work," she said. "We realized in that moment that our day-to-day work and our crucial role in the games industry as QA was not being taken into consideration. And at that time, we decided as Raven QA to start a strike to demonstrate that we are not just disposable parts of the industry, and during that time, it became very apparent that we had majority support within our department for a union."
The ABK Workers Alliance used its sizable social media following to crowdfund over $370,000 to assist with wages during the strike. The CWA said that this strike was the third work stoppage at Activision Blizzard after the company was sued in July 2021 over sexual harassment and misconduct claims. Still, about 20 members of the department remain on strike, Rongstad told TechCrunch.
"We are not sure how long [the strike] will continue, because we have not had direct communication with leadership about our demand that the 12 individuals who were let go be reinstated, which is unfortunate," said Rongstad, who has been with Raven Software since September 2020. "We are hoping to be able to go through with our unionization and get voluntary recognition so that we can prevent something like this from happening in the future."
Rongstad added that the news of Microsoft's planned acquisition does not change the union's plans to seek recognition.
"At the end of the day, we want to be able to work with leadership to create the most positive and beneficial work environment for all of the workers at ABK, and we are happy to work with leadership, whether that is the current leadership or Microsoft leadership in the future," they told TechCrunch.
This level of organizing among workers has little precedent in gaming, despite the industry being notorious for over-working employees or deploying mass layoffs due to closing studios. But only a month ago did the first voluntarily recognized gaming union form in North America at the small indie studio Vodeo Games, which produces "Beast Breaker." Vodeo's union also works with the CWA.
In an emailed statement to TechCrunch, Activision Blizzard responded to the Game Workers Alliance's announcement:
Activision Blizzard is carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the CWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees. While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union.
Across Activision Blizzard, we remain focused on listening closely to our employees and providing the improved pay, benefits and professional opportunities needed to attract and retain the world’s best talent. Over the past couple of years, this has included raising minimum compensation for Raven QA employees by 41%, extending paid time off, expanding access to medical benefits for employees and significant others, and transitioning more than 60% of temporary Raven QA staff into full-time employees.
It's yet to be seen whether or not Activision Blizzard will voluntarily recognize the Game Workers Alliance. If Activision Blizzard chooses to recognize the union, then they don't need to have a union election and can begin collective bargaining. If the company opts not to recognize them, then the union can conduct an election through the National Labor Relations Board.
"We do have supermajority, and that's why we were able to ask for voluntary recognition. We're confident that if it went to a vote, we would win," said Rongstad. "We are hoping that they will voluntarily recognize the union and just show their support for workers rights."
The Game Workers Alliance is giving Activision Blizzard until January 25 to respond to their request for voluntary recognition. Read their letter below:
View this document on Scribd
Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion
Activision Blizzard workers will stage a walkout after ‘abhorrent’ response to harassment suit
Amanda Silberling
Fri, January 21, 2022
Today, Raven Software's quality assurance (QA) department -- which mostly works on "Call of Duty" as part of Activision Blizzard -- became the first union to form at a major U.S. gaming company. With help from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Raven Software testers launched the Game Workers Alliance, which plans to focus on "improving the conditions of workers in the video game industry by making it a more sustainable, equitable place where transparency is paramount," even beyond its own company. The 34-worker unit is asking management to recognize their union during a time already marked by change: on Tuesday, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in one of the priciest tech acquisitions of all time.
Why Microsoft’s $2T+ market cap makes its $68B Activision buy a cheap bet
But on the heels of that historic acquisition, Activision Blizzard has been embroiled in controversy amid ongoing SEC investigations and sexual harassment scandals. Internally, employees started laying a grassroots foundation for worker solidarity through groups like the ABK Workers Alliance. When Raven Software laid off 12 contractors in early December, the team at the Wisconsin-based studio staged a walkout, which has continued for five weeks and counting.
Raven Software QA tester Onah Rongstad told TechCrunch that this incident sparked discussions about unionizing.
"On December 3, about a third of my department was informed that their contracts were going to be terminated early. And this was coming off of a five-week stretch of overtime, consistent work," she said. "We realized in that moment that our day-to-day work and our crucial role in the games industry as QA was not being taken into consideration. And at that time, we decided as Raven QA to start a strike to demonstrate that we are not just disposable parts of the industry, and during that time, it became very apparent that we had majority support within our department for a union."
The ABK Workers Alliance used its sizable social media following to crowdfund over $370,000 to assist with wages during the strike. The CWA said that this strike was the third work stoppage at Activision Blizzard after the company was sued in July 2021 over sexual harassment and misconduct claims. Still, about 20 members of the department remain on strike, Rongstad told TechCrunch.
"We are not sure how long [the strike] will continue, because we have not had direct communication with leadership about our demand that the 12 individuals who were let go be reinstated, which is unfortunate," said Rongstad, who has been with Raven Software since September 2020. "We are hoping to be able to go through with our unionization and get voluntary recognition so that we can prevent something like this from happening in the future."
Rongstad added that the news of Microsoft's planned acquisition does not change the union's plans to seek recognition.
"At the end of the day, we want to be able to work with leadership to create the most positive and beneficial work environment for all of the workers at ABK, and we are happy to work with leadership, whether that is the current leadership or Microsoft leadership in the future," they told TechCrunch.
This level of organizing among workers has little precedent in gaming, despite the industry being notorious for over-working employees or deploying mass layoffs due to closing studios. But only a month ago did the first voluntarily recognized gaming union form in North America at the small indie studio Vodeo Games, which produces "Beast Breaker." Vodeo's union also works with the CWA.
In an emailed statement to TechCrunch, Activision Blizzard responded to the Game Workers Alliance's announcement:
Activision Blizzard is carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the CWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees. While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union.
Across Activision Blizzard, we remain focused on listening closely to our employees and providing the improved pay, benefits and professional opportunities needed to attract and retain the world’s best talent. Over the past couple of years, this has included raising minimum compensation for Raven QA employees by 41%, extending paid time off, expanding access to medical benefits for employees and significant others, and transitioning more than 60% of temporary Raven QA staff into full-time employees.
It's yet to be seen whether or not Activision Blizzard will voluntarily recognize the Game Workers Alliance. If Activision Blizzard chooses to recognize the union, then they don't need to have a union election and can begin collective bargaining. If the company opts not to recognize them, then the union can conduct an election through the National Labor Relations Board.
"We do have supermajority, and that's why we were able to ask for voluntary recognition. We're confident that if it went to a vote, we would win," said Rongstad. "We are hoping that they will voluntarily recognize the union and just show their support for workers rights."
The Game Workers Alliance is giving Activision Blizzard until January 25 to respond to their request for voluntary recognition. Read their letter below:
View this document on Scribd
Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion
Activision Blizzard workers will stage a walkout after ‘abhorrent’ response to harassment suit
Jaimie Ding
Fri, January 21, 2022
Workers at Raven Software, maker of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" and other video games, have voted to unionize. (Associated Press)
After weeks of striking, quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard-owned game studio Raven Software have voted to form a new union, adding a wrinkle to Microsoft's $69-billion acquisition of the video game giant.
Workers at the Wisconsin-based studio that leads development of the popular game “Call of Duty” are launching the Game Workers Alliance with Communications Workers of America. The quality assurance unit consists of 34 workers, 27 of whom voted to publicly support the union.
“In the video game industry, specifically Raven QA, people are passionate about their jobs and the content they are creating,” Becka Aigner, a Raven QA functional tester, said in a press release. “We want to make sure that the passion from these workers is accurately reflected in our workplace and the content we make.”
More than 60 workers walked off the job at Raven Software and across the 10,000-employee company headquartered in Santa Monica in early December to protest the dismissal of several members of the quality assurance department at the end of their contracts. The strike has been running for five weeks.
Jessica Gonzalez, a former Activision employee and organizer with worker group A Better ABK, called the news a “huge step” for labor organizing in the games industry.
“The first-ever blockbuster studio to unionize, it’s a big deal,” Gonzalez said.
Worker unrest has been stirring at Activision Blizzard for months. California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against the firm last summer, alleging that senior leaders allowed sexual harassment and pay discrimination to continue unchecked throughout the company for years.
In the wake of the lawsuit, workers at the company formed A Better ABK to press for better conditions and worker representation at Activision Blizzard and its King unit, maker of popular mobile games such as "Candy Crush."
A Wall Street Journal investigation in November showed that Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick knew about sexual harassment allegations for years. Nearly a fifth of the firm’s staffers signed a petition and a walkout was organized to call for Kotick’s resignation.
Workers across the video game industry have increasingly been pushing back against work conditions that include temporary contracts with minimal job security and brutal weeks-long pushes to meet game deadlines. In December, about a dozen workers at the independent game developer Vodeo Games formed the first video game studio union in North America.
Friday’s news comes on the heels of Tuesday's announcement that Microsoft would be purchasing Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the largest acquisition in the software company’s history. Some employees expressed unhappiness that the deal could represent a soft exit for Kotick, who stands to walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars.
Microsoft, like most of the tech industry, is not unionized, though temporary employees at the contractor Lionbridge Technologies signed a union contract with the company in 2016. Some Microsoft workers in South Korea and Britain are also part of unions.
Microsoft Gaming Chief Executive Phil Spencer told the Washington Post on Thursday that he doesn't "have a lot of personal experience with unions."
"I’ve been at Microsoft for 33 years," Spencer said. "So I’m not going to try to come across as an expert on this, but I’ll say we’ll be having conversations about what empowers them to do their best work, which as you can imagine in a creative industry, is the most important thing for us.”
The newly formed Game Workers Alliance requested voluntary recognition from Activision Blizzard but will move forward with a balloted election through the National Labor Relations Board if they do not receive a response by Tuesday.
“A collective bargaining agreement will give Raven QA employees a voice at work, improving the games they produce and making the company stronger," CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens said in the press release. "Voluntary recognition is the rational way forward.”
The Game Workers Alliance also accused the company of "surveillance and intimidation tactics," including hiring union busters to silence workers.
An Activision Blizzard spokesperson said the company is “carefully reviewing” the request for voluntary recognition from CWA.
“While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union,” the spokesperson said.
The company said it has raised minimum compensation for Raven QA employees by 41%, extended paid time off, expanded access to medical benefits and transitioned more than 60% of temporary QA staff into full-time employees.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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