QA testers at Activision Blizzard's Raven Software announce intent to unionise
Quality assurance testers at Activision Blizzard's Wisconsin-based Raven Software studio — where strike action has been ongoing since December, following the firing of 12 members of the developer's QA team — have announced their intention to form a worker's union.
The instigating incident — which came amid an already troublesome time for Activision Blizzard management, who had been repeatedly criticised following the California state lawsuit calling the publisher a «breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women» — took place in December when around a third of the QA team was laid off. The firings, coming after a five-week period of overtime and anticipated end-of-year crunch, occurred despite Activision allegedly promising the team it was working on a pay restructure to increase wages.
«Today, one by one, valuable members of the team were called into meetings and told they were being let go», Raven Software's associate community manager, Austin O'Brien, tweeted at the time. Some of the affected team had reportedly relocated to Wisconsin, without assistance from Raven, in anticipation of the return to in-person work, due to reassurances from the studio that their workload would remain consistent.
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Shortly after the incident, staff at Ravensoft announced a walkout in solidarity with those fired, writing, «The Raven QA department is essential to the day-to-day functioning of the studio as a whole. Terminating the contracts of high performing testers in a time of consistent work and profit puts the health of the studio at risk.» The group demanded, «Every member of the QA team, including those terminated on Friday, must be offered full time
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