CWA union says Bobby Kotick's "fake lawsuit" claims are false, unsurprising, and "insulting to the Activision workers who spoke out"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Ex Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick's recent comments on the Grit podcast regarding "fake lawsuits" brought against Activision Blizzard around 2021 are "false", "insulting" to alleged victims, and "unsurprising", a spokesperson for the Communication Workers Of America (CWA) has told RPS.

Kotick appeared on venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins podcast earlier this week, alongside former EA CEO and current Kleiner Perkins advisor Bing Gordon. Discussing the above legal cases alongside petitions to remove him as CEO, Kotick spoke of "fake lawsuits against us and Riot Games making allegations about the workplace that weren't true," claiming his former company was "targeted" by the CWA in a bid to increase union membership.

"The claims Bobby Kotick presents in the podcast regarding the “fake lawsuits” are false," the CWA spokesperson told RPS in an emailed statement that includes links to past correspondence and reporting. "In 2021, Activision agreed to an $18 million dollar settlement with the EEOC following a lawsuit that Activision had sexually harassed and discriminated against its workforce. Bobby Kotick himself apologized in his own press release for the inappropriate conduct that happened under his watch."

"Alongside the settlement money, Activision also agreed to provide anti-harassment and anti-discrimination trainings, expand mental health counseling services to its workers, and provide victim-specific relief, as outlined in the EEOC’s release on March 3, 2022."

"Subsequently, in 2023, Activision reached a $54 million dollar settlement with the California Civil Rights Department (which was formerly known as the California State Department of Fair Employment and Housing, as Kotick references in the podcast) for discriminating against women in the workplace and for pay inequities."

For additional context: following the settlement, the state department said that "no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations [of] systemic or