Activision Blizzard is facing another representation of an unhappy workforce in the form of a planned walk out.
Today, Activision Blizzard employees in Austin, Albany, Minnesota, and the main office in California will be protesting via a walkout, the U.S Supreme Court’s rollback of Roe v. Wade privacy rights, as well as other national legislation that arguably target minority communities.
While Activision Blizzard’s CEO Bobby Kotick most likely had nothing to do with the Supreme Court’s decision, his employees are still asking him and the company to do more to help and protect marginalized workers from the repercussions of recent legislation particularly aimed at the LGBTQ+ community and women.
Demands from protesting workers include protections for “ABK employees from external threats like the recent Roe v. Wade and internal threats such as retaliation and harassment while in the workplace.”
Other items highlighted as part of the protest call for Activision Blizzard to provide cost of living adjustments for employees forced to relocate from states affected by the Roe v. Wade reversal as well as better assistance for remote workers, extended parental leave, and a complete end to mandatory arbitration included in employee contracts.
The Committee Against Sex and Discrimination offers more details on the walkout as well as previously unreported information that led to its decision via the @ABetterABK Twitter.
According to the committee, a list of its demands was delivered to Activision Blizzard’s leadership over two months ago but only a handful of them were met with lackluster follow through.
Two months ago, the Committee Against Sex and Gender Discrimination delivered a list of demands to company leadership for the protection of marginalized groups. Rather than meeting with us when we went public with these demands, they chose to respond to media outlets. (8/17)
— ABetterABK 💙 ABK Workers Alliance (@ABetterABK) July 6, 2022
The walkout is scheduled for 10 a.m. through 2 p.m. PT, and comes after another fight and relative win for the Quality Assurance team at Activision Blizzard’s Raven studio, which secured the unionization recognition from the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR) and Microsoft a couple of months ago.
