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NLRB ruling opens door for Raven Software union vote

Raven Software looks to be one step closer to unionization following a National Labor Relations Board ruling.

Ozzie Mejia

April 22, 2022 2:25 PM

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In the continuing saga of Activision Blizzard and its labor force, the latest chapter seems to have opened the door for a portion of its workers to unionize. On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that a group of 21 Raven Software quality assurance workers can vote on whether to take part in a labor union. This will lead to a town hall meeting next week, in which the Raven workers will decide how to move forward.

The Raven workers initially filed for a union election in late January after Activision Blizzard missed the deadline to voluntarily recognize the Raven union. Activision's argument was that a union for any portion of Raven's workers would have to lead to a union for all 230 of the studio's workers, an argument that was ultimately rejected by the NLRB with today's ruling.

"While we respect the NLRB process, we are disappointed that a decision that could significantly impact the future of our entire studio will be made by fewer than 10 percent of our employees," Activision Blizzard spokesperson Rich George told the Washington Post. "We believe a direct relationship with team members is the best path to achieving individual and company goals."

Activision Blizzard recently moved to make all of its in-house contract QA workers into full-time employees, giving them an increased pay wage in the process. However, this excluded those employees who were attempting to unionize, specifically the workers at Raven.

Raven Software and its QA department have been in the news since December after Activision laid off a portion of the Call of Duty: Warzone workforce, leading to an employee walkout that lasted several weeks.

The story of Raven Software, its QA department, and the movement towards unionization does not appear to be over. We will continue to follow this story at Shacknews. Keep it here for the latest updates.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?