The Zenimax QA department has successfully voted on creating a union, Zenimax Workers United and the Communications Workers of America have announced. This means over 300 employees at the studio voted in favour of unionization.
Microsoft recognized the union as it promised it would. In June 2022, the CWA struck a deal with Microsoft where it would approve the ongoing merger of Activision Blizzard if it would support any union efforts from internal studios.
And as it turns out, Microsoft did their part says Chris Shelton, the CWA president to CNN. “Other video game and tech giants have made a conscious choice to attack, undermine, and demoralize their own employees when they join together to form a union. Microsoft is charting a different course which will strengthen its corporate culture and ability to serve its customers and should serve as a model for the industry and as a blueprint for regulators.”
“In light of the results of the recent unionization vote, we recognize the Communications Workers of America as the bargaining representative for the Quality Assurance employees at ZeniMax,” said a Microsoft spokesperson of the vote. “We look forward to engaging in good faith negotiations as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement.”
Zenimax QA joins Blizzard Albany’s QA department, which voted to unionize back in November, and Raven Software‘s QA department, which voted to unionize in May 2022, despite seeing interference from Activision at every step of the process.
