There have been some new developments in the unionization effort by Proletariat, which was acquired by Blizzard last year. After announcing the intention to unionize the full studio last month, a dispute on how many members of the studio wanted to vote for unionization came about. Declining to unionize outright, an anonymous vote through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is coming.
A statement from Proletariat from January 9th confirms that the Communications Workers of America (CWA ) filed a petition to represent some Proletariat workers in December, with the intent of organizing them and representing those employees in unionization.
This update was titled Everyone Deserves a Vote. Instead of a formal position declaring a full studio unionization, as was the effective message in the original message, they decided to call for an anonymous voting process under the NLRB. “Besides being the fairest option, this also allows employees to get all the information and various points of view” Proletariat said their statement. There were reports last week that Activision Blizzard did not want to voluntarily recognize a Proletariat union. Yet, there were questions about how many members of the studio actually intended or desired to unionize, and whether some felt pressured.
The CWA, representing the organizing committee responded, saying “Our Proletariat leadership and upper management at Activision have refused our requests to talk about neutrality and are forcing us through an NLRB election, even though a supermajority of our bargaining unit have signed union cards”. Yet, the anonymous voting process looks to go ahead.
The previous tweets were the statements of our Organizing Committee, and not representative of all Proletariat workers. There continues to be ongoing and healthy conversations amongst the proposed bargaining unit and the workers look forward to collaborating together! https://t.co/qN2JQKIs2t
— Proletariat Workers Alliance (CWA) (@WeArePWA_CWA) January 17, 2023
Today, there was a new update, with a new statement highlighting discussions between the workers. “The previous tweets were the statements of our Organizing Committee, and not representative of all Proletariat workers.There continues to be ongoing and healthy conversations amongst the proposed bargaining unit and the workers look forward to collaborating together!”
A Blizzard spokesperson shared the following statement on the latest update to the process::
“We appreciate the acknowledgement and agree that the CWA’s previous tweets were the statements of the Organizing Committee, and not representative of all Proletariat workers.
This is one of the main reasons why many employees requested an anonymous vote. Shortly after the CWA filed the petition, some employees also said they felt pressured to sign union cards, were inadequately informed about what they were signing and what it meant when they signed. Given this, we strongly feel a vote is the fairest option. We want to ensure that all employees can make their voices heard, as this is their decision.”
