600 Activision QA workers unionize, Microsoft voluntarily recognizes

09.03.2024 - 00:59 / polygon.com / Raven Software

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.”

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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