Blizzard Albany QA Workers Have Request to Vote for Union Approved

Update 10/10/2022: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has approved Blizzard Albany’s 21 quality assurance workers’ request to vote to unionise.

As reported by The Washington Post, The NLRB found that the QA workers can earn up to $41,995 a year if they work full time with no weeks off – while other Blizzard Albany employees earn between $56,250 and $175,050 – and therefore dismissed Activision Blizzard’s claim that the QA workers fell into the same general category as the rest of its employees.

“While we respect the NLRB process, we strongly disagree that a decision that could significantly impact the future of the entire Albany-based Diablo team should be made by just a handful of employees,” said Activision Blizzard spokesman Rich George.

“Given our tightly integrated operations in Albany, all of our eligible non-supervisory employees there should have a voice and be allowed to vote, not just the approximately 20 quality assurance testers picked by the union.”

We are thrilled to announce that the NLRB ruled in our favor to have an election of Albany QA testers at Blizzard. With 94% committed to winning the union, we look forward to counting ballots a month from today!#1u #UnionYes

— GWA Albany (@WeAreGWAAlbany) October 19, 2022

Original Story 07/20/2022: A group of quality assurance workers at Blizzard Albany, the Activision Blizzard developer previously named Vicarious Visions (known for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 and Skylanders), are working to unionise.

As reported by The Washington Post, the group of around 20 employees has filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and asked Activision Blizzard management to voluntarily recognise the union.

Today, we announce a new union at Activision Blizzard.

QA is currently an undervalued discipline in the games and software industries. We strive to
foster work environments where we are respected and compensated for our essential role in the
development process. 1/5

— GWA Albany (@WeAreGWAAlbany) July 19, 2022

Activision Blizzard has not confirmed whether it will or not, however, but said a decision will be announced formally and publicly to the NLRB. A spokesperson told The Washington Post that “we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union.”

The efforts of quality assurance workers at Raven Software – who formed Activision Blizzard’s first union in January – encouraged the employees of Blizzard Albany to unionise themselves, as associate test analyst Amanda Laven said “it’s been very, very helpful and inspiring” to see other employees show it’s possible.

“Seeing their process, it’s been demystifying to see them do it first and have an idea of how things go and how the company might respond,” she added. “We’ve already gotten to see some someone do it in our own company, and they’ve been very forthcoming with us talking to us about what things are like and what problems they encountered.”

The unionisation effort has been growing through the games industry, seemingly slowly but surely. Quality assurance testers working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf for external support company Keywords Studio also officially voted to unionise in June.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.