Activision Blizzard has been found to have withheld raises from unionizing workers says the National Labor Relations Board.
Quality Assurance workers at Raven Software, one of the studios that work on the Call of Duty series, voted to unionize in May. Following the historical filed a complaint on behalf of the same workers. It said that Activision Blizzard was looking to retaliate against those who voted yes to unionizing often by either laying off employees or in this case, removing several key figures out of the quality assurance department.
To add further fuel to the fire, Activision Blizzard offered a raise to employees, some hitting upwards of $20/hour. Instead, those who voted to unionize were told they could not legally be given a raise.
“Due to legal obligations under the [National Labor Relations Act] requiring employers not to grant wage increases while an election was pending, we could not institute new pay initiatives at Raven because they would be brand new kinds of compensation changes, which had not been planned beforehand. This rule that employers should not grant these kinds of wage increases has been the law for many years.”
The Activison Blizzard acquisition continues with Microsoft even as it continues to face several hurdles. Phil Spencer went on record to say Microsoft would recognize the union once the merger was completed and while the entire process will cost $68.7 billion, it’s great to see that there are some people in positions of power making these deals that see their needs to be some sort of governing power helping the workers.
