The ABK Workers Alliance is also reportedly seeking official support for a union at Activision Blizzard.
The ABK Workers Alliance, formed after a lawsuit of Activision Blizzard employees alleging widespread sexual harassment and discrimination at the company, launched a fundraising campaign to support workers participating in the layoff that began Monday. The Gofundme campaign is seeking $1 million to help cover lost wages and relocate Raven Software employees who were laid off last week.
The business shutdown began when members of Raven Software's QA team left the studio to protest the decision to fire QA staff. Employees from other studios joined the action on Tuesday, including the entire central AQ team at Call of Duty studio Treyarch. According to a Washington Post report, Activision Blizzard management has told employees participating in the strike that they will receive pay Monday through Wednesday, but not beyond that, so if they want to continue the strike they will either have to take paid leave or go unpaid.
Activision Blizzard's previous job cuts in July and November were single-day jobs, but there's no indication when that will end. Gofundme indicates that the page was open-ended, saying that employees intended to catch up with support for the strike "until their demands are met and the worker demonstration is eventually placed within the company."
These requests, first published in July, include:
- End mandatory arbitration clauses in all current and future employee contracts. Arbitration provisions protect abusers and limit victims' ability to seek compensation.
- Adopting hiring, interviewing, hiring and promotion policies designed to improve representation among employees at all levels, agreed upon by employees in a company-wide Diversity, Equality and Inclusion organization. Existing practices have led to the fact that women, especially women of color and transgender, non-binary people and other marginalized groups who are vulnerable to gender discrimination, are not recruited fairly for new roles compared to men.
- Publish data on relative compensation (including equity grants and profit sharing), promotion rates and salary ranges for employees of all genders and ethnicities in the company. Current practices have led to the above groups not being paid or promoted fairly.
- Strengthen the company-wide Diversity, Equality and Inclusion task force to hire a third party to oversee ABK's reporting structure, HR department, and executive staff. It is imperative to identify how existing systems fail to prevent employee harassment and propose new solutions to address these issues.
The Washington Post report also indicates that Activision Blizzard may come closer to unionizing as employees are asked to sign union authorization cards, which could lead to a company-wide union vote.
The ABK Workers Alliance collaborated with Communication Workers of America, a national union representing nearly 700.000 workers in the public and private sectors, in a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board in September, and is reportedly working with it on this union move.
It is not yet clear whether the strike announced today will bring broader action at Activision Blizzard or formalize the business stoppage that is currently underway.
