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After Activision Blizzard refused to voluntarily acknowledge the union shaped by QA testers at Raven Software program — a subsidiary that works on the Name of Responsibility video games — the testers went by the election course of and voted to kind a union final month. Now, Activision Blizzard’s present CEO Bobby Kotick instructed staff in a letter that the corporate acknowledges the union and can “have interaction in good religion negotiations to enter right into a collective bargaining settlement.”
Getting right here comes after information of layoffs late final yr, adopted by an worker walkout and a five-week strike. There was additionally the half the place Activision Blizzard engaged in techniques that smelled of union busting, like all of a sudden changing different testers within the firm to full-time jobs with advantages and pay bumps that the Raven testers didn’t get in addition to spreading their roles out throughout the corporate, which is only one small a part of worker backlash that has occurred inside Activision Blizzard over the past yr.
The remainder of the textual content in Kotick’s letter is under. After the vote handed with 19 out of twenty-two votes (two ballots had been challenged), the corporate was out of straightforward choices to proceed avoiding this. Nonetheless, an alternate route included the one Amazon is taking in response to a union vote in one in all its warehouses, the place it’s contesting the vote, in a course of which will delay the beginning of negotiations for years.
In the meantime, Microsoft, which is within the technique of making an attempt to accumulate Activision Blizzard, just lately publicly adopted ideas for worker organizing. The ideas included a line saying, “We’re devoted to sustaining an in depth relationship and shared partnership with all our staff, together with these represented by a union” — with out particularly guaranteeing a lot.
Staff,
I wished to share the information that we’ll start negotiations with the Communications Staff of America associated to the 27 high quality assurance staff at Raven Software program, the vast majority of whom have chosen to be represented by this union. With the election having concluded, we’ll have interaction in good religion negotiations to enter right into a collective bargaining settlement.
Whereas first labor contracts can take a while to finish, we’ll meet CWA leaders on the bargaining desk and work towards an settlement that helps the success of all our staff, that additional strengthens our dedication to create the trade’s finest, most welcoming and inclusive office, and enhances our means to ship world class video games for our gamers.
We start this course of after main investments in our QA workforce members over the previous couple years, together with considerably rising beginning pay for QA specialists and changing over 1,100 U.S.-based short-term and contingent QA staff to full-time positions. This conversion is offering entry to complete firm advantages for QA staff and their eligible dependents. As well as, we’ve expanded entry to efficiency bonuses for QA staff and studying and growth alternatives. We even have built-in QA extra seamlessly into the sport growth course of, rising collaboration that ends in higher merchandise for our gamers and extra alternatives for our groups.
It is a time of nice alternative for our firm. I need to thanks for the eagerness, talent, and dedication you convey every day to create nice video games, to embrace alternatives to make this the trade’s best possible place to work, and to attach and interact our gamers all over the world.
With appreciation,
Bobby
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