Warzone studio votes to form biggest game dev union in the US
The members of Raven Software’s QA team, which recently contributed to the development of Call of Duty: Warzone, has officially voted to unionise, making it the highest-profile game developer union in the United States. The final vote was 19-3 in favour of forming a union, a total that will be certified by the National Labor Relations Board.
While Activision Blizzard can contest the results for the next seven days, NLRB certification of the vote will make the Raven QA team, Game Workers Alliance, an officially recognised union who will act as a bargaining unit on matters such as employee compensation, weekly hours commitments, and health benefits.
In April, Activision Blizzard argued that a union vote would have to include all employees of Raven, or more than 200 workers, in order to be valid, but the NLRB found that the smaller group of quality assurance workers were eligible to hold a vote on their own. Activision had refused to voluntarily recognise the union in January, which initially formed last year after Activision laid off a dozen QA workers at Raven. The layoffs prompted weeks of strikes at the massive publisher.
NLRB prosecutors have said that Activision Blizzard illegally interfered with the group’s collective action rights and threatened members to discourage unionisation, according to a Bloomberg report. Activision has denied the allegations.
Microsoft, which announced a deal to buy Activision Blizzard at the beginning of the year, has said that it would “not stand in the way” of Activision employees who form a union.
In July 2021, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard alleging years of workplace discrimination and harassment. The story has since embroiled CEO Bobby Kotick and
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