Activision Blizzard sent out a message to many of its employees on January 31, 2022. But this wasn’t just any old announcement. The company seems to have been trying to slow down or even stop the process of unionization.
The story was broken by former employee and union organizer at Activision Blizzard Jessica Gonzalez who tweeted that Vice President of Quality Assurance Christian Arends “just posted this shit in company Slack.” Gonzalez noted how the announcement was “posted in a channel where you can’t reply to threads” despite the fact that workers were called upon to “send me questions.”
“I cannot stress this enough, the company respects employees’ National Labor Relations Act rights to have these discussions about potential unionization and supports your rights to do so,” Arends pointed out. But this was only the beginning of the announcement. The executive went on to answer several outstanding questions in terms that bordered on union busting. There were several thumbs down at the bottom left by employees in response.
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“Job security here at Activision Blizzard rests with our ability to produce epic entertainment for our fans,” Arends remarked. “A union doesn’t do anything to help us produce world-class games and the bargaining process is not typically quick, often reduces flexibility, and can be adversarial and lead to negative publicity.” He went on to say that “all of this could hurt our ability to continue creating great games. While many union contracts include a ‘just cause’ provision and a grievance process, this is really just a different way to deal with disciplinary issues.”
When it came to the matter of collective
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