As confirmed by Shannon Liao of The Washington Post, Activision Blizzard have failed to recognize the Game Workers Alliance and the GWA ill now proceed to file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
All the Game Workers Alliance have to do is meet 50% plus 1 vote from those within their department and Activision Blizzard will have to start negotiating with them over work conditions in good faith. The Game Workers Alliance is made up of 34 employees in Raven Software’s quality assurance department and claim to have a supermajority of votes within their department. This is what also allows them to formalize the union with the NLRB.
What makes this more interesting is that Wilma Liebman, former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under former president Barack Obama, believes that Activision Blizzard will try to break up those within the Game Workers Alliance by moving them to other teams or by diluting support for the union directly. Liebman stated:
“The union would have a decent case to make that by doing this on the heels of a request for recognition and on the heels of all this union organizing activity, that this was somehow unlawful, intended to kill the union strength. I would say that having seen these kinds of things many times, that there’s possibly more afoot here than meets the eye.”
The situation started in early December after many within the QA department were laid off or only promised their positions until January 28. Many of whom were promised for months they would receive an increase in pay. Flash forward to this past week when several Activision Blizzard employees decided to move forward with union efforts with many of those within Quality Assurance started the Game Workers Alliance where they asked to be recognized as a union by Activision Blizzard.
