Raven's union came from business as usual | This Week in Business
Brendan Sinclair
Managing Editor
Friday 27th May 2022
This week marked a milestone in the industry, as we saw the formation of the first US union at a major AAA publisher.
On Monday, Raven Software QA employees voted for unionization. It's a historic accomplishment, and one with a relative handful of individuals at the heart of it.
STAT | 19 - The number of Raven QA staff who voted in favor of unionization, compared to just three who voted against it.
Kudos to those 19 for looking out for themselves and each other, and for doing it in the face of illegal union busting by their employer, which made it very clearly from the outset that it wanted no part of a unionized workplace. (I am compelled here to say alleged illegal union busting because the National Labor Relations Board wants Activision Blizzard to settle the issue before a formal complaint is made, and such a settlement would almost certainly involve no admission of wrong-doing on the publisher's part.)
19 Raven QA staffers stared down the industry's 800-pound gorilla
It's easy to view this as yet another body blow to Activision Blizzard in a year jam packed with them. Ever since the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing first filed its gender discrimination and workplace harassment suit last July, virtually nothing has gone Activision Blizzard's way.
Much of that was just a history of mendacious mismanagement coming due, a series of outrageous revelations around indefensible actions. That self-inflicted damage was exacerbated by a frankly incompetent mishandling of the situation, and it didn't help that Call of Duty started flagging after a decade of the company doubling down on the franchise time and again to the exclusion of all else (in the Activision
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
