Blizzard QA workers in Albany are organizing Activision’s second union
The QA department at Blizzard Albany, the studio formerly known as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2’s Vicarious Visions, has become the second QA department within Activision Blizzard to organize a union.
Today, we announce a new union at Activision Blizzard. QA is currently an undervalued discipline in the games and software industries. We strive to foster work environments where we are respected and compensated for our essential role in the development process. 1/5
The group, organized as GWA Albany, has around 20 members and formed a union to address issues like competitive and fair compensation, healthcare, and “establishing reasonable protocols to address demands of ‘crunch’ time.”
GWA Albany is now the second QA department within Activision Blizzard to unionize after QA workers at Raven Software organized, voted, and won their union over the course of the last six months.
Amanda Laven, an associate test analyst and member of the GWA Albany organizing committee, said their organizing process started in December — around the same time Raven employees were walking out to protest layoffs — and that “seeing [Raven Software’s] process helped us a lot so we could understand what was ahead of us.”
And there will indeed be a lot ahead of them. Throughout Raven’s organizing process, Activision Blizzard was accused of union busting, resulting in a pending unfair labor practice suit from the NLRB.
The company reorganized Raven’s QA department to splinter its members across different teams, petitioned to have the union vote extended to all Raven employees and not only the QA bargaining unit, and, in a startling move, raised the minimum pay to $20 / hour for every QA employee except those at Raven.
Laven says her team is
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