Union Urges Regulators Not To Rush Microsoft Antitrust Review Before Activision Blizzard Deal

thegamer.com:

The union representing workers in the media industry, Communications Workers of America, has been urging regulators in the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice to prioritize labor market impacts before overhauling the existing corporate merger guidelines. The agencies are currently reviewing the Activision Blizzard deal in light of antitrust legislation.

Communications Workers of America is a union which “represents working people in telecommunications, customer service, media, airlines, health care, public service and education, and manufacturing.” The organization has nearly a million members including many in the games industry.

“In order to preserve fairness in labor market competition, Communications Workers of America recommends assessing how proposed mergers exacerbate corporate dominance over workers including through the suppression of wages, restrictive contracts like non-competes that reduce worker mobility, and denial of workers’ ability to exercise their legal rights by imposing nondisclosure agreements, mandatory arbitration agreements, and engaging in practices like union busting,” the union said in a statement.

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This comes in the wake of a recent announcement by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice earlier this year that both agencies would be updating the corporate merger guidelines in order to prevent anticompetitive deals. “Currently, a narrow consumer welfare standard has been the cornerstone of antitrust analysis which prioritizes impacts on consumer prices and too often takes corporations at their word that consolidation will benefit the public,” the union explained.

The organization