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Just this week, Activision Blizzard employees announced that they will be carrying out a full work strike against their employer. This comes as the mountain of sexual harassment lawsuits, allegations of sexual misconduct, deplorable behavior from CEO Bobby Kotick, and layoffs continues to cast a damning shadow over the company.
Though talks about unionizing have been happening for "months," the real spark happened after members of Raven's QA department were laid off. According to Kotaku, that spark pushed employees to begin openly organizing, setting the gears in motion to forming or joining a union.
Talks about unionizing don't seem to be sitting well with the executives at Activision Blizzard. After all, why would the executives want their employees to hold any sort of power over them? To that end, one Activision executive sent out a company-wide email today that warns employees of the "consequences" of unionizing.
The email was sent out by Brian Bulatao. Bulatao was a former Trump administration official that worked under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. After serving as Pompeo's lapdog, Bulatao was named Chief Administrative Officer at Activision Blizzard in March 2021.
Here is what Bulatao sent out to employees on the morning of Friday, December 10, 2021. The emphasis in the quote below is his:
Everyone,
At Activision Blizzard, we are working hard to create a more inclusive, supportive, and rewarding environment, and thanks to your input, we are making progress.
In the past few months, we’ve announced that we’re converting nearly 500 temporary workers to full-time employees at Activision Publishing studios, and we have increased wages for a large portion of temporary workers and added paid time off benefits. We introduced a zero-tolerance harassment policy and waived required arbitration of sexual harassment and discrimination claims. We have made significant commitments to increase gender diversity and are dedicating $250 million to accelerate opportunities for diverse talent across the industry. We have more to do, and we believe that direct dialogue between management and employees is essential to the success of Activision Blizzard.
As you may have seen yesterday, there was a communication supported by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) that asked employees to sign and submit union authorization cards. I want to be clear about this: The leadership of Activision Blizzard supports your right, under the the [sic] National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), to make your own decision about whether or not to join a union.
As you make this decision for your future, we ask only that you take time to consider the consequences of your signature on the binding legal document presented to you by CWA. Once you sign that document, you will have signed over to CWA the exclusive right “to represent [you] for the purposes of collective bargaining concerning all terms and conditions of employment.†That means that your ability to negotiate all your own working conditions will be turned over to CWA, just as the document says.
Achieving our workplace culture aspirations will best occur through active, transparent dialogue between leaders and employees that we can act upon quickly. That is the better path than simply signing an electronic form offered to you by CWA or awaiting the outcome of a legally-mandated and -regulated bargaining process sometime in the future.
If we fail to achieve the workplace goals we have set forth—if we fail to do the things we’ve committed to doing—then of course you will still always have the right to engage with, and vote for, CWA. But we are confident that we will make the progress we’ve previously pledged to make and create a workplace with you that we all can be proud of.
As always, we welcome outreach with concerns or ideas to help make improvements, and there are multiple avenues internally for dialogue, both direct and anonymous.
Brian
At Activision Blizzard, we are working hard to create a more inclusive, supportive, and rewarding environment, and thanks to your input, we are making progress.
In the past few months, we’ve announced that we’re converting nearly 500 temporary workers to full-time employees at Activision Publishing studios, and we have increased wages for a large portion of temporary workers and added paid time off benefits. We introduced a zero-tolerance harassment policy and waived required arbitration of sexual harassment and discrimination claims. We have made significant commitments to increase gender diversity and are dedicating $250 million to accelerate opportunities for diverse talent across the industry. We have more to do, and we believe that direct dialogue between management and employees is essential to the success of Activision Blizzard.
As you may have seen yesterday, there was a communication supported by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) that asked employees to sign and submit union authorization cards. I want to be clear about this: The leadership of Activision Blizzard supports your right, under the the [sic] National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), to make your own decision about whether or not to join a union.
As you make this decision for your future, we ask only that you take time to consider the consequences of your signature on the binding legal document presented to you by CWA. Once you sign that document, you will have signed over to CWA the exclusive right “to represent [you] for the purposes of collective bargaining concerning all terms and conditions of employment.†That means that your ability to negotiate all your own working conditions will be turned over to CWA, just as the document says.
Achieving our workplace culture aspirations will best occur through active, transparent dialogue between leaders and employees that we can act upon quickly. That is the better path than simply signing an electronic form offered to you by CWA or awaiting the outcome of a legally-mandated and -regulated bargaining process sometime in the future.
If we fail to achieve the workplace goals we have set forth—if we fail to do the things we’ve committed to doing—then of course you will still always have the right to engage with, and vote for, CWA. But we are confident that we will make the progress we’ve previously pledged to make and create a workplace with you that we all can be proud of.
As always, we welcome outreach with concerns or ideas to help make improvements, and there are multiple avenues internally for dialogue, both direct and anonymous.
Brian
As part of this week's strike announcement, the ABK Workers Alliance also set up a public Gofundme page for those who want to help those that are striking for a better workplace environment. When we reported on the strike yesterday, the group had raised over $143,000 (USD). As of right now, that amount has surged to over $250,000.
ABK Workers Alliance is still working towards gathering the 30% support that is needed to hold a vote to unionize.
Obviously, it's not about encouraging worker rights by trusting Activision Blizzard. It's about preventing the vote from succeeding, or happening at all.