It was announced that 600 Activision QA employees have formed the largest video game union ever, with support from the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
When you post on Twitter, Announced by @ABetterABK“We are pleased to announce that Activision Quality Assurance testers in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Texas have voted to form the video game industry’s largest union under the umbrella of Activision Quality Assurance United (AQAU).”
It added: “This union was formed based on five key principles that we want to uphold within our workplaces: democracy, diversity, fairness, solidarity and transparency. Together, we aim to create a brighter future for both our company and the industry as a whole.”
This union was voluntarily recognized by Microsoft, resulting in more than 1,000 QA employees currently unionizing under Microsoft.
A CWA representative told Polygon that the final vote was 390 “yes” and 8 “no” votes.
In a statement to Polygon, CWA representatives said, “What we have established is that QA and customer service are some of the lowest paid jobs in our industry and are often looked down upon both within the industry and by our customers. That's true.'' Organizing committee member Kara Fannon told Polygon. “Even if we log tens of thousands of bugs, it's easy for people to say to her QA, 'Oh, I found a bug.' So why have QA? [unionizing], as opposed to others in the industry? We currently have the weakest protections, but we want to make sure we are strong so that our work can continue to move forward. We want to support these games and work hard on them. ”
The Activision QA team works on some of the industry's biggest video games, including: call of duty seriesCrash Bandicoot, etc.
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