Activision Blizzard won’t voluntarily recognize the historic Raven Software QA union

techcrunch.com:

Last week, quality assurance testers at Activision Blizzard division Raven Software formed the first union at a major U.S. gaming company, comprising their 34-member unit. But last night, the gaming giant — which is slated to be acquired by Microsoft for $67.8 billion — announced that it will not voluntarily recognize this union.

Now, the newly formed Game Workers Alliance must file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election. The union, working with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), responded to the news with the following statement:

“We, the supermajority of workers at Raven QA, are proud to be confidently filing our petition with the NLRB for our union election. We are deeply disappointed that Raven Software and Activision Blizzard refused to uplift workers rights by choosing to not voluntarily recognize our union in spite of our supermajority support.

This was an opportunity for Activision Blizzard to show a real commitment setting new and improved standards for workers. Instead, Activision Blizzard has chosen to make a rushed restructuring announcement to try and hinder our right to organize. Once again, when management is given a choice, they always seem to take the low road.

However, we are proud to file with the NLRB as we enjoy supermajority support for our union and know that together, we will gain the formal legal recognition we have earned.”

Since the union represents a supermajority of Raven Software quality assurance testers, unit member Onah Rongstad told TechCrunch last week that the union was confident that they would win their election. But now, even though the employees formed this union to represent the 34 quality assurance testers, Activision Blizzard thinks “all