600 Activision QA workers unionize, Microsoft voluntarily recognizes

600 Activision QA workers unionize, Microsoft voluntarily recognizes

Time Stamp: March 8, 2024 7:30 PM

Hundreds of Activision quality assurance workers are unionizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The union covers approximately 600 Activision central QA workers across three locations: Austin, Texas; Eden Prairie, Minn.; and El Segundo, Calif. This makes the union, called Activision Quality Assurance United – CWA, the largest group of unionized video game workers in the U.S.

The final vote is tallied at 390 votes “yes” and eight votes “no,” a CWA representative told Polygon.

“Something we organized around is that in this industry, QA and customer service are the lowest paid jobs, and often looked down upon either within the industry or by customers,” Activision QA tester and organizing committee member Kara Fannon told Polygon. “It’s easy for people to say to QA, ‘Oh, I found a bug,’ even though we logged tens of thousands of bugs. So why is QA [unionizing], as opposed to other people in the industry? We have the weakest protections currently and we want to make sure that we’re strong so our work can keep going the way it is — we want to be supporting these games and working really hard on them.”

Activision Quality Assurance United – CWA members work on games published by Activision Publishing, including franchises like Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, and Tony Hawk Pro Skater. The group joins unionized Microsoft and Activision Blizzard employees at Blizzard Albany, Raven Software, and ZeniMax.

The Blizzard Albany and Raven Software unions were brought under Microsoft with the company’s $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard merger. Previously, ZeniMax Workers United was the largest group of video game industry QA workers at Microsoft and across companies in the U.S. with more than 300 workers.

Like the organizing efforts at ZeniMax, Activision QA workers reportedly did not face the union-busting tactics that were alleged to have occurred during Blizzard Albany and Raven Software’s union campaigns. That’s because Microsoft signed a labor neutrality agreement with CWA in 2022, which is basically a contract that says Microsoft must stay neutral in all union interactions. Agreements like this are not common, Risa Lieberwitz, professor of Labor Law and Employment Law at Cornell’s School of Industrial Labor and Relations and academic director for IRL’s The Worker Institute, told Polygon in 2023 after ZeniMax’s union win.

“Now under Microsoft with the neutrality agreement they signed with CWA, it’s a lot easier,” Fannon said. “We don’t have to be concerned about any form of union-busting tactics. Microsoft made sure all managers were trained on neutrality. We knew that if we encountered union busting, we could bring it up so it’s addressed.”

Polygon has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

The other positive is that neither Activision’s QA workers nor Microsoft management have to go through the union election process with the National Labor Relations Board, which can sometimes take a while. Instead, Activision QA workers have been voting since Feb. 22 with either a union authorization card (a document, physical or digital, indicating approval of the union) or a confidential vote through an online portal.

Fannon added that the next step for the union is to enter into bargaining with Microsoft. But first, members will be surveyed to take stock of what issues are most important to the group. “One great thing about a union is that it’s a democratic process,” Fannon said. “People have different ideas of what they want. Some things that are fairly common among people are wanting better pay — here in Minnesota, we don’t make what would be considered a living wage.”

Fannon also pointed to better career development opportunities, increased benefits, and job security. Layoffs have created a major crisis for video game industry workers for the past couple years, and Activision’s QA workers are thinking about their futures, too; better severance packages are important. A union can’t always prevent layoffs, but it does empower workers to negotiate for their futures; in February, Sega of America’s union workers were able to save 18 jobs and negotiate better severance for those who were laid off. At Microsoft, ZeniMax QA union members were spared from a massive 1,900-person layoff in January. While union status may not have been a factor, some union members think it was.

Once it’s clear what union members want to fight for, they’ll head into negotiations, which entails the union and Microsoft going back and forth on a contract.

The news also means Activision QA workers from across the country are united; members are meeting people they might not otherwise come in contact with. That camaraderie is powerful, even outside of a contract — both in what it does for workplace solidarity, but also as a way to inspire the industry.

“It’s nice to know that everyone’s gonna hear about this, and that people can be inspired to form their own unions,” Fannon said. “I went to a conference and there were some people who were part of Starbucks Workers United. They were talking and I was feeling so inspired. And then I realized, people might feel that way about what we’re doing. It hasn’t really hit about how monumental it is. But it feels really good to be a part of.”

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