About 600 Activision Blizzard QA workers have announced their decision to unionize under the Communication Workers of America, creating the largest group of unionized workers from any studio. This number surpasses the size of the ZeniMax Workers United CWA union at a time of deep and painful labor cuts in the industry.
Now that Activision Blizzard is under its new parent company, Microsoft, things have shifted on organized labor. Microsoft, before acquiring Activision Blizzard, announced cooperation with the CWA on what they called a labor neutrality policy. Letting employees decide if they wanted to opt for collective bargaining or not, and not pressuring or union busting. At the acquisition, Microsoft reiterated that policy. This new group, now known as Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA, is the first to organize under that labor neutrality agreement policy since the companies came together.
As part of the process, Microsoft held up its end and officially recognized the new union. In a press release announcing the newly formed union, Microsoft VP and Deputy General Counsel Amy Pannoni, says, “We recognize the Communications Workers of America (CWA) as the bargaining representative for the Activision Publishing Central Quality Assurance employees. We look forward to continuing our positive labor management relationship”.
Now, CWA represents not just the new cohort of the Activision Blizzard QA team, but more than 1,000 workers at Microsoft. This count includes the ZeniMax workers, and others, like Blizzard Albany QA, and Raven Software that had voted to unionize under Activision Blizzard prior to the acquisition. The CWA also represents several other groups at other companies, like Sega and eBay.
ZeniMax Workers United/CWA announced several agreements with Microsoft that bumped pay and made some contractors Microsoft employees. They’re still negotiating their first full contract. As for Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA, their process has only just begun.
