Since a gaggle of 34 high quality assurance testers at Raven Software voted to unionize earlier this month, the studio’s father or mother firm, Activision Blizzard, has been making strikes that can undermine that help and make it tougher for staff to prepare. This morning, Activision VP of QA Chris Arends despatched the clearest message but about the place executives stand on the unionization effort, and (spoiler) it is firmly towards.
In an inside, locked Slack channel on Monday morning, Arends requested himself six questions in regards to the potential union and supplied solutions for workers from Activision’s standpoint, as shared on Twitter by union organizer Jessica Gonzalez. Employees have been unable to answer the message. Each reply diminished the advantages of unionization, however the fourth immediate supplied probably the most express takedown of the group course of. It reads as follows:
We heard that the union will shield workers and supply workers with job safety?
Job safety right here at ABK rests with our capacity to provide epic leisure for our followers. A union does not do something to assist us produce world-class video games, and the bargaining course of isn’t sometimes fast, usually reduces flexibility, and will be adversarial and result in damaging publicity. All of this might damage our capacity to proceed creating nice video games.
The fifth reply argued that union-driven bargaining takes too lengthy to be efficient, stating the plain within the course of: “A unionized company cannot act quickly on its own if the union does not agree with its position.” The ultimate reply reminded workers that they do not should vote in favor of the union when an election takes place.
On Twitter, Gonzalez known as the publish “sad.”
This is the most recent transfer from Activision designed to halt momentum on the unionization course of at Raven. Just three days after workers introduced that they had gathered a supermajority of signatures required to unionize underneath the title Game Workers Alliance, Raven head Brian Raffel revealed a reorganization plan that breaks up the studio’s QA division, shifting workers to disparate groups.
Communications Workers of America, which is backing GWA, mentioned on Twitter that the shuffle was “nothing more than a tactic to thwart Raven QA workers who are exercising their right to organize.”
Activision additionally did not voluntarily acknowledge GWA, which implies they’re going to have to hunt a vote via the NLRB, a course of that may take years. Additionally, Activision is pushing for the vote to incorporate all workers at Raven, fairly than solely QA staff, lowering the potential for achievement.
Arends’ Slack message — attempting to persuade workers that unions will make their works lives slower and crappier — falls consistent with Activision’s earlier ways.
Activision Blizzard is at present the topic of intense scrutiny from a number of angles. GWA would be the first union at a AAA sport improvement studio in North America, probably setting the stage for extra group throughout the business. Plus, Activision Blizzard is the topic of a lawsuit and a number of investigations into studies of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment on the studio, with incidents allegedly relationship again a long time.
And lastly, Microsoft is within the course of of shopping for Activision Blizzard, Raven Software and all, in a deal value $69 billion. It’ll be the most important acquisition in online game historical past and it marks the business’s period of consolidation. One day after information of the acquisition went stay, Activision told the SEC that there have been no unionization efforts underway at its studios, although within the months earlier than, executives instructed Raven workers to “consider the consequences” of signing union playing cards.
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