For the past several months, members of the QA team at Raven Software, Activision’s studio in charge of Call of Duty Warzone, went on strike, this with the aim of creating a workers’ union. Now, today it has been revealed that the efforts of these people have yielded a positive result, as they are unionizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
This group, known as the Game Workers Alliance, is made up of 34 workers, and they are asking Activision Blizzard to recognize this union on a voluntary basis, which has the support of 78% of Raven workers. Here’s what Becka Aigner, Raven Software’s QA Tester, had to say:
“Today, I am proud to join the vast majority of my coworkers in building our union, the Game Workers Alliance (CWA). In the gaming industry, specifically at Raven QA, people are passionate about their work and the content they are creating. We want to make sure that the passion of these workers is accurately reflected in our workplace and in the content we create. Our union is how our collective voices can be heard by leadership.”
For her part, Sara Steffens, secretary-treasurer of the Communications Workers of America, issued the following statement:
“We ask that Activision Blizzard management respect Raven’s QA workers by willingly acknowledging CWA’s representation without hesitation. A collective bargaining agreement will give Raven’s quality control employees a voice on the job, improving the games they produce and strengthening the company. Voluntary recognition is the rational path to follow.”
This is the first union we see in an AAA studio in the United States, since in other regions this has already happened. Without a doubt, a historic moment for workers in this industry. For its part, a representative of Activision Blizzard has issued the following statement:
“The company is closely reviewing the CWA’s request for voluntary recognition, which seeks to organize about three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees.”
QA members are typically the lowest paid workers in the industry and do not have any job security. We saw this last month. when Raven employees were fired without much noticeand many more were denied a stable contract.
On related topics, some Activision Blizzard employees are concerned about the Microsoft purchase. Similarly, this is what Phil Spencer had to say about unionizing workers.
Editor’s Note:
This is a great time for the industry. Being the first in anything is always difficult, but this is only the first step to offer better workspaces, without crunch or harassment, now we just have to wait and see if other groups of workers join this path.
Via: polygonal