That’s despite an agreement Microsoft made in June with the CWA to stay neutral on labor organizing among its workforce. Microsoft agreed to purchase Activision Blizzard for $69 billion earlier this year, but the deal has yet to close. Microsoft leadership has expressed support on multiple occasions for Activision workers who vote to unionize, and it was not clear whether Microsoft’s more labor-friendly position would influence Activision Blizzard management with regard to its treatment of new unions.
Now, however, quality assurance testers at Blizzard Albany who last month voted to form the union Game Workers Alliance Albany say Activision Blizzard has hired the same law firm, Reed Smith, it used to try and stifle support for the union campaign at subsidiary Raven Software using a variety of measures designed to undermine support for the union. Those efforts ultimately failed at Raven, and QA workers at the Call of Duty studio held an election with the National Labor Relations Board, the results of which made Raven Software home to the first-ever union at a major game development company in North America.
