Activision Blizzard says collective bargaining is a human right | This Week in Business
This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check back every Friday for a new entry.
Activision Blizzard is getting ready to hold its annual meeting of stockholders next week, and that means everyone owning stock in the company can vote on the board of directors, the executive compensation plan, and a handful of measures proposed by other shareholders.
Today we're focusing on one of those proposals, Proposal 6, submitted by the AFL-CIO Equity Index Funds, the investment arm of America's largest union group. So it's not terribly surprising to learn the group is proposing a commitment to non-interference when employees try to unionize.
Earlier this month, corporate governance specialist Glass Lewis weighed in on the proposals before Activision Blizzard, and suggested that shareholders side with the company on most issues. But it contradicted management's advice on Proposal 6.
QUOTE | "[A]llegations of anti-union activity can cause significant reputational harm and result in regulatory or legal risk for companies perceived as thwarting employees' attempts to collectively bargain or associate. We believe that taking steps to allay potential controversies of this nature could benefit the Company and could mitigate potential risks, and we believe that adoption of this resolution could be one such step." – Part of Glass Lewis' reasoning for supporting the proposal.
To my mild surprise, Activision Blizzard's response went a little bit further than the generic corporate statement along the lines of, "The Company begrudgingly acknowledges its employees have a
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