A group of approximately 600 quality assurance professionals from Activision Publishing has formed the nation's largest video game industry union.
The bargaining unit, backed by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), is the first to be organized at Activision under a labor neutrality agreement between the CWA and Microsoft. The agreement comes after the company acquired Activision Blizzard last October. Under the terms of the agreement, all Activision Blizzard employees are free to discuss and begin efforts to unionize. As an independent company, Activision Blizzard strongly pushed back against attempts by its employees to organize, but Microsoft agreed to remain neutral.
The new QA worker bargaining unit includes Activision employees in California, Texas, and Minnesota. CWA currently represents over 1,000 video game employees at Microsoft.
We feel this group's unionization is especially important given the current turmoil in the gaming industry, with more than 8,000 gaming industry workers being laid off in the first two months of this year. Microsoft was one of the biggest contributors to this number, laying off 1,900 employees in January, most of them from the Activision Blizzard team.
In a release, Communications Workers of America President Claude Cummings Jr. praised Microsoft for continuing its philosophy of voluntarily recognizing employees' unionization efforts.
Microsoft continues its commitment to empowering workers to decide for themselves whether to form a union. Other large companies in the industry have made the decision time and time again to undermine and attack their own employees when they band together to form unions. Microsoft's selection strengthens the company's culture and customer service capabilities and should serve as a model for the industry.
Amy Panoni, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Human Resources and Legal Affairs, Microsoft, added:
We upheld our commitment to remain neutral during the organizing campaign and, following this vote, recognized Communications Workers of America (CWA) as the bargaining representative for Activision Publishing Central Quality Assurance employees. We hope to continue to maintain good labor-management relations in the future.
