About 600 employees of Microsoft Corp.'s video game maker Activision Publishing have unionized, forming the largest video game union in the United States, the Communications Workers of America announced Friday. Microsoft recognized the union after the vote count was finalized.
The employees work in quality assurance, testing Activision games for bugs, glitches and other flaws, and 390 of them voted to unionize, while eight voted against it, the union said. Ta. About 200 workers did not vote.
In October, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the maker of blockbuster titles such as Call of Duty, for $69 billion. As part of a long-running effort to get regulators to approve the deal, Microsoft signed an industry-first agreement to remain neutral if workers want to unionize with CWA.
Managers are trained not to express opinions on whether unionization is good or bad, and CWA says Activision management supports the agreement and does not interfere with worker organizing efforts. Ta.
“Organizationally, this was a huge blessing,” said Kara Fannon, a union organizing committee member who works at Activision near Minneapolis. “It helped a lot of people who were concerned about union busting and possible retaliation.”
The new union will be Activision's first since the agreement went into effect.
“Microsoft's selection strengthens the company's culture and customer service capabilities and should serve as an example for the industry,” CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said in a statement.
The largest group of employees is in Minnesota, but the union also includes offices in Texas and California. The union's hopes include negotiating higher wages, improving job security and providing more advancement opportunities for quality assurance testers, who hold some of the lowest-paid jobs in game development.
The agreement also meant that workers could avoid the lengthy and contentious process of petitioning the National Labor Relations Board for an election. Instead, it's a quick process for workers to express support for or opposition to the union by signing a union recognition card or voting privately online at a portal that opened on February 22 and closes Thursday afternoon. It was adopted. Independent adjudicator Fred Horowitz verified the results.
After the votes were counted, Amy Panoni, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said in a statement that the company looks forward to “continuing positive labor relations” and named CWA as “Activision Publishing's core quality bargaining representative.” He said he was aware of it. Guaranteed Employee. ”
Employees have been organizing at Activision since at least 2021, when employees across the company went on strike after a California civil rights agency accused the company of sexual misconduct in the workplace. . (The company settled the lawsuit on narrower grounds last year.) Over time, worker organizing focused on forming a union with support from the CWA.
Workers also saw a successful unionization effort last year at video game company ZeniMax Media, also owned by Microsoft. ZeniMax Media has extended its neutrality agreement to include other video game studios it owns. In January 2023, about 300 employees at ZeniMax, the company Bethesda Game Studios produces such hit titles as The Elder Scrolls, voted to form a union through a new, expedited process.
Following Friday's results, the CWA now represents more than 1,000 video game employees at Microsoft.
For more than a year, the video game industry has been disrupted by a wave of layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. Even before Microsoft cut 1,900 jobs in its video game division in January, including numerous layoffs at Activision, Fanon said workers were in the market for stronger layoff protections, including improved severance benefits. He said it was a common concern.