‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ studio will unionize with out Activision Blizzard’s blessing | Engadget

Activision Blizzard had till 6PM ET on January twenty fifth to voluntarily acknowledge Game Workers Alliance, a gaggle of Raven Software staff that just lately gathered the votes to unionize, backed by Communications Workers of America. That deadline handed with out recognition from Activision Blizzard, and Raven staff will now transfer ahead with plans to file for a union election via the National Labor Relations Board.

“At Activision Blizzard, we deeply respect the rights of all employees to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson stated. “We carefully reviewed and considered the CWA initial request last week and tried to find a mutually acceptable solution with the CWA that would have led to an expedited election process. Unfortunately, the parties could not reach an agreement.”

Events have been unfolding shortly right here, so let’s break it down by day:

• January twenty first: More than 30 high quality assurance testers at Raven Software introduced they’d gathered sufficient signatures to unionize, a transfer that will make Game Workers Alliance the primary union at a large-scale North American online game studio. Raven is owned by Activision Blizzard and focuses on supporting Call of Duty: Warzone, so that is about as AAA because it will get. Union signatories requested Activision Blizzard management to voluntarily acknowledge GWA by January twenty fifth.

• January twenty second: Raven staff ended a weekslong strike towards Activision Blizzard, awaiting union recognition from executives. The strike started on December sixth, in response to layoffs of 12 QA testers at Raven — all of whom had signed their names to the unionization effort, in line with The Washington Post.

• January twenty fourth: Raven head Brian Raffel despatched an e mail to staff asserting “organizational change” that will dissolve QA as a group and switch these staff to varied departments throughout the studio. This is called “embedding” and it is not unusual at AAA studios. Raffel stated embedding was the following logical step in a course of that started “several months ago.”

“As we look ahead at the ongoing expansion of Call of Duty: Warzone, it’s more important than ever that we foster tighter integration and coordination across the studio – embedding will allow for this,” Raffel wrote. 

The timing of the announcement and the deal with QA testers has involved activist teams, union signatories at Raven and Activision Blizzard staff who’ve been preventing for cultural change on the studio since final yr. Activision Blizzard is the topic of a lawsuit and a number of investigations into allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment, and staff have walked out a number of instances, calling for longstanding CEO Bobby Kotick to resign.

It’s unclear how the restructuring at Raven will affect the union going ahead, however the fear is that this transfer will impede members’ capacity to coordinate with one another. CWA stated on Twitter that the announcement was “nothing more than a tactic to thwart Raven QA workers who are exercising their right to organize.”

The CWA thread continued, “When Management uses meaningless buzzwords like ‘alignment,’ ‘synergy,’ and ‘reorganization,’ they are sending a message to workers: ‘we make all the decisions, we have all the power.’”

An Activision Publishing spokesperson supplied the next response to questions concerning the timing of the reorganization: 

“This is the next step in a process that has been carefully considered and in the works for some time, and this structure brings Raven into alignment with the best practices of other prominent Activision studios. It is also a milestone in our broader plan to integrate QA more into the development process as our teams strive to deliver best in class coordination in real-time, live service operations.”

All of which brings us to as we speak. Activision Blizzard staff have a supermajority of votes in favor of unionizing, and so they’re bringing their case to the NLRB. This is usually a protracted course of, and the longer it takes, the extra leverage Activision Blizzard management can have.

Cornell professor of labor and employment regulation Risa Lieberwitz instructed The Washington Post that the structural adjustments should not interrupt the unionization course of, however added that the timing “raises the question of whether [Activision Blizzard] are retaliating against the QA employees because of their union activities.”

The full assertion from an Activision Blizzard spokesperson concerning the failed unionization talks with CWA follows:

At Activision Blizzard, we deeply respect the rights of all staff to make their very own choices about whether or not or to not be part of a union. We fastidiously reviewed and thought of the CWA preliminary request final week and tried to discover a mutually acceptable resolution with the CWA that will have led to an expedited election course of. Unfortunately, the events couldn’t attain an settlement.

We anticipate that the union can be shifting ahead with the submitting of a petition to the NLRB for an election. If filed, the corporate will reply formally to that petition promptly. The most essential factor to the corporate is that every eligible worker has the chance to have their voice heard and their particular person vote counted, and we expect all staff at Raven ought to have a say on this resolution.

Across the corporate, we imagine {that a} direct relationship between managers and group members permits us to shortly reply and ship the strongest outcomes and alternatives for workers. As a results of these direct relationships, we’ve made quite a lot of adjustments over the previous couple years together with elevating minimal compensation for Raven QA staff by 41%, extending paid day without work, increasing entry to medical advantages for workers and their vital others, and transitioning greater than 60% of short-term Raven QA employees into full-time staff. We stay up for persevering with a direct dialogue with our group and dealing collectively to make our office higher.

Microsoft final week introduced plans to accumulate Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, a deal that is poised to alter the online game panorama utterly. One day after that information dropped, Activision stated in an SEC filing that there have been no unionization efforts underway on the studio, although it had beforehand warned Raven staff to “consider the consequences” of signing union cards.