Acvision Blizzard Will Not Voluntarily Recognize New Raven Software Union

34 quality assurance staff formed a new union at Raven Software called the Game Workers Alliance Union. It became the first combination of publicly traded video game publishers (the first within Activision Blizzard). The union asked Activision Blizzard for voluntary recognition, but the publisher said it would not.

Raven asked Activision Blizzard for approval by January 25, and hours after the deadline, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson sent the following statement to Game Informer:

“At Activision Blizzard, we deeply respect the right of all employees to make their own decisions about union membership. We carefully reviewed and considered the CWA’s initial request last week and worked to find a mutually acceptable solution with the CWA that would have resulted in a faster election process. Unfortunately, the parties could not reach an agreement.

We expect the union to proceed with filing an election petition with the NLRB. If submitted, the company will immediately and formally respond to the petition. The most important thing for the company is that each qualified employee has the opportunity to hear their voices and count their individual votes, and we believe that every employee at Raven should have a say in this decision.

Across the company, we believe that direct relationships between managers and team members allow us to respond quickly and deliver the strongest results and opportunities for our people. As a result of this direct relationship, we have made many changes over the past few years, including increasing the minimum compensation for Raven QA employees by 41%, extending paid leave, and expanding access to health care for employees and their important people. I brought it. Convert more than 60% of temporary Raven QA staff to full-time. We look forward to continuing to have direct conversations with our team and working together to make the workplace a better place.”

As can be seen in the statement above, Activision Blizzard said that it had considered the request of the Raven Guild and worked to find a solution that both it and the Guild could agree on. No such solution could be found because the publisher decided not to voluntarily recognize the Game Workers Federation. As the statement states, unions will now require a vote and the National Labor Relations Commission will oversee the election.

For a union to win an election, it now needs to get 50% of the votes within the department and one more vote. At that point, Activision Blizzard must negotiate with the union in accordance with the rules of election procedure. It is not yet known when this NLRB election will take place.