Activision Blizzard King employees will hold a walkout for gender equality
On July 21, workers from Activision Blizzard King will stage a walkout led by the employee-run Committee Against Sex and Gender Discrimination. The walkout was first announced by employee organization A Better Activision Blizzard King/ABK Workers Alliance on July 6, in light of the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade and its reproductive healthcare protections and ABK’s silence on the matter.
“Our walk-out demands focus on the protections of ABK employees from external threats like the recent overturn of Roe V. Wade, and internal threats such as retaliation and harassment while in the workplace,” A Better ABK tweeted. “For background on why this walkout is being held, the company’s current healthcare policies do not adequately protect the workers of ABK. The presently offered $4000 reimbursements for out of state medical care currently leave employees open to legal prosecution in their home state. Travel reimbursements do not remove workers from imminent danger.”
A Better ABK noted that they have already tried to work directly with management on these issues, but haven’t been met with much cooperation.
“Two months ago, the Committee Against Sex and Gender Discrimination delivered a list of demands to company leadership for the protection of marginalized groups,” A Better ABK tweeted. “Rather than meeting with us when we went public with these demands, they chose to respond to media outlets.”
The latter part of this statement is in reference to a GameDeveloper article about the A Better ABK demands that ABK management then responded to, rather than responding to the workers themselves. It seems that in the time since A Better ABK first announced the walkout, things have not improved.
“On July 21st ABK Workers will be walking out to end gender inequity at Activision Blizzard King. Our message has been driven towards leadership for a year with little to no concessions,” A Better ABK tweeted on Wednesday. “From moving goalposts, to spontaneous “chat” invitations from executives with individual members, we have seen the attempts to undermine workers’ collective voice.”
To support the walkout and A Better ABK, the worker’s alliance has created profile picture borders that fans can use to show their solidarity. Beyond that, the group has asked fans to talk about and share the demands A Better ABK has put forward for the walkout.
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