Union vote passes among Raven Software QA staff
On Monday, quality assurance workers at Raven Software – the QA staff working on Call of Duty: Warzone – voted to establish a union in their workplace. This is the first union of its kind at publisher Activision Blizzard. According to Polygon, out of the group of 30 workers, 19 voted “yes” on the union while three voted against forming the union.
This vote has come after a months-long battle. The Raven Software QA staff originally started organizing in December with a walkout strike over several members of the QA team being terminated suddenly. This came after employees had moved across states to join the Call of Duty: Warzone quality assurance team.
After the walkout, the Raven QA employees announced their intention to unionize with the Communications Workers of America in January. Activision Blizzard went on to state that it would not recognize the union, and the case had to go to the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB ruled in favor of the Raven Software QA workers, which allowed them to proceed with their historic union vote.
Since then, Activision Blizzard proceeded to convert all its U.S.-based temporary and contingent quality assurance positions to full-time jobs. Almost 1,100 employees were made full-time Activision employees, had their pay go up to at least $20 an hour, and gained access to bonuses and benefits.
Activision Blizzard is also in the middle of acquisition proceedings with Microsoft. The Xbox creator is looking to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 million. The deal is currently being assessed by the FTC for antitrust violations. Essentially, the FTC will be looking to see if the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft could potentially harm competition in their market.
Update: On Tuesday, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson provided a statement to gamesindustry.biz about the union vote:
“We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union. We believe that an important decision that will impact the entire Raven Software studio of roughly 350 people should not be made by 19 Raven employees.”
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