Published , by Captain Business
Published , by Captain Business
The employees at Activision Blizzard have been engaging in a public dialogue with the company's management over the past few months, and things are certainly heating up. Earlier today, the ABetterABK ABK Workers Alliance tweeted a question to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick asking if he is "prepared to voluntarily recognize a union." Check out the full tweet embedded below.
This escalation of the current labor dispute at the massive third-party game development company comes on the back of several bits of news for the movement. Bobby Kotick requested that his salary be lowered to $62,500 until the workplace culture improves earlier this week. This news broke the same day as the company waived worker arbitration for Activision Blizzard employees, in a win for the ABetterABK movement.
The ABetterABK Twitter account put out a statement on the arbitration win. Here's a transcription of the entire tweet thread:
As ABetterABK said today on Twitter, it appears that Kotick has certainly been saying the right things lately, but the CEO must be held accountable for these commitments. The formation of a union at Activision Blizzard would be a huge breakthrough for the video game industry, and this movement for employee rights goes beyond their company to other studios like Ubisoft, as they mention in the above tweet thread.
The ABetterABK Activision Blizzard Workers Alliance asks that people consider donating to charities in support of their cause. Their demands are simple and it shouldn't be hard for companies with billions of dollars in profits like Activision Blizzard to implement a plan to make employees feel safer at work. It appears that the workers still doubt that their CEO Bobby Kotick will actually do anything meaningful, and a unionization push could put the heat on. Only time will tell where this all goes from here, but we support all developers fighting for their rights.
Keep it locked on Shacknews next week as Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is set to report their earnings results and one would have to believe that the topic of the employee union will come up on the conference call.