Last week was another brutal one for the games industry, with thousands of layoffs after what was already a difficult 2023. Microsoft announced it was cutting about 1,900 employees, many of them Activision Blizzard employees that came over. The Communications Workers of America, which represents many of the unionized employees at Activision Blizzard and Microsoft has said that its workers were spared from the layoffs, though one worker is disputing this.
The statement from the CWA was shared in Game Developer, and the organization’s original statement addressed the mass layoffs by saying, “Microsoft's announcement that it will be laying off 1,900 video game workers makes clear that, even when you work at a successful company in an extremely profitable industry, your livelihood is not protected without a voice on the job”.
An update later shared by the outlet says that one CWA union member, a former VFX artist at Blizzard, says they were laid off last week. The CWA continued to stand by their original statement that their members were not affected by the recent layoffs, stating that, “CWA-represented members at Microsoft were not included in the announced layoffs. Currently, CWA officially represents QA testers at ZeniMax, Raven, and Blizzard Albany. CWA is not considered the official representative by the company for other units until a majority of the employees in a bargaining unit authorize CWA as their representative”.
Regardless of whether it is one employee or zero as the CWA claims, there is still significance in the fact that they currently represent hundreds of employees under various Microsoft-owned companies. With the Activision Blizzard merger, Microsoft reiterated cooperation with its a neutral stance on unionization and letting employees decide for themselves.
