Activision Blizzard Employees Vote to Form the Videogame Company’s First Union

“We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union,” said a spokesman for Activision. “We believe that an important decision that will impact the entire Raven Software studio of roughly 350 people should not be made by 19 Raven employees.”

Activision shares fell 0.26% to close at $77.20 on Monday.

Activision, which has about 10,000 employees, had argued that more of Raven’s nonmanagement staff should have been involved in the process. The new union, to be called the Game Workers Alliance, could be certified by the National Labor Relations Board next week, barring any objections to how the vote was conducted.

Raven helps make Activision’s popular “Call of Duty” franchise. Tensions with the studio’s employees flared last year when Activision ended contracts with about a dozen of its quality-assurance workers, who are responsible for testing games for bugs. More than 60 Raven workers walked out in protest and later some announced plans to unionize.

The Raven workers’ union victory comes after members of the videogame industry have for years complained about being pressured by their employers into working excessive hours to meet deadlines. Another common criticism is that many game studios enable cultures that are hostile to women.

Workers at other big companies including

Amazon.com Inc.

and

Starbucks Corp.

have also recently moved to form unions despite pushback from management, generating mixed results. Last year employees at Google parent

Alphabet Inc.

formed the Alphabet Workers Union. It now has about 900 workers according to its website.

Activision, which is in the process of being acquired by

Microsoft Corp.

for about $75 billion, has been under investigation by state and federal agencies over numerous complaints by female employees of harassment, discrimination and retaliation. In March a federal judge approved an $18 million settlement between Activision and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over such allegations.

Some of Activision’s employees last year formed a group called ABK Alliance to push for improvements to its culture and working conditions. ABK is shorthand for the company’s three main business units, Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment and King.

U.S. unions broadly have been pressing to increase their ranks and secure gains for their members amid the tighter labor market of the pandemic era, seeking to reverse long-term declines in private-sector union membership. In 2021, a record low 6.1% of private-sector workers were members of a union, according to the Labor Department.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at [email protected]