600 Activision QA staff vote to form the biggest US game union to date: “As QA workers, we often have the weakest protections and lowest pay”
Workers from the Call of Duty publisher form Activision Quality Assurance United
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
About 600 ofActivision’s QA staff have voted to unionize, formally becoming the biggest video game union in North America.
Hundreds of quality assurance workers in the Activision Publishing department voted to form the Activision Quality Assurance United union, assisted by the Communication Workers of America (CWA). A CWA representative tellsPolygonthat 390 tallied votes read “yes,” with eight votes opting for a “no.”
The Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, and Warcraft publisher was recently acquired byMicrosoftafter a series of long, long legal battles. Microsoft previously claimed itwouldn’t stand in the way of possible Activision Blizzard unionsand announced a labor neutrality agreement back in 2022, which apparently made the unionization process easier on organizers, according toThe Verge.
“This has been an emergent effort that’s arisen in the last few weeks in response to the opportunities we’ve had to freely organize following the merger,” an organizer from the newly-formed union, Tom Shelley, tells The Verge. “As QA workers, we often have the weakest protections and lowest pay of any workers in the industry,” he continues, “even though our work is integral to the success of the companies we work for and the titles we make.”
Unionization efforts acrossActivision Blizzard, and the wider gaming industry, have been growing in recent years. Staff fromRaven SoftwareandBlizzard Albanysuccessfully unionized in 2022 despite some potentially union-busting tactics employed by their parent company, And ZeniMax Worker United, Xbox’s first-ever unionized subsidiary,began bargaining with corporate stepdad Microsoftjust last year.
Microsoft also recently announced layoffs affecting around 1,900 employees in the gaming division earlier this year.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
Halo Infinite update rewinds time for Halo 2’s birthday, throwing the FPS back 20 years with a nostalgic mode that deletes sprint and adds classic maps
Microsoft says Black Ops 6 is the “biggest Call of Duty release ever” as Activision meets its goal to reach “as many players as possible wherever they are, however they play”
Dragon Age: Origins writer says the RPG series has a secret “overarching plan,” but won’t reveal the “very last plot” in case BioWare actually makes it
