Activision Blizzard Workers Win Union Vote

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Activision Blizzard Workers Win Union Vote
Activision Blizzard Logo Under Microscope

Workers at Activision Blizzard subsidiary Raven Software won their labor union vote today—a move that certifies the first union at a major video game publisher in the U.S., and one that could potentially transform the Santa Monica-based game developer that Microsoft is paying $69 billion to acquire.


Twenty-two employees at Wisconsin-based Raven voted 19-to-3 in favor of ratifying their Game Workers Alliance union in a National Labor Relations Board-sponsored election on Monday. The Raven workers—who do quality assurance testing for popular Activision titles like “Call of Duty”—formed the Game Workers Alliance in January and proceeded with the vote after Activision refused to voluntarily recognize the union.

The vote marks the first time that employees at a AAA game publisher in the U.S. have successfully unionized their workplace. It could also be a key step toward unionizing the rest of Activision’s 10,000-person workforce—something that Raven labor organizers told dot.LA earlier this year is part of their larger plan.

“We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union,” Activision spokesperson Talia Ron told dot.LA in an email Monday. “We believe that an important decision that will impact the entire Raven Software studio of roughly 350 people should not be made by 19 Raven employees.”

None of Activision’s major competitors, such as West Los Angeles-based Riot Games, have unionized employees. Across the entire video game industry, only indie studio Vodeo Games has a labor union—one which became the first certified game workers’ union in North America last year.

“This is a huge win for not only the gaming industry but AAA gaming, because this is the first studio you're seeing out of a AAA [publisher] actually unionizing,” labor organizer and former Activision quality assurance tester Jessica Gonazlez told dot.LA.

Pro-union Activision employees have long felt that an organized workplace could provide the muscle they need to address issues that have plagued the company and their industry at large—from long, grueling work hours to sexual harassment and discrimination. “I'm very, very hopeful that this is going to be part of a larger wave of unionizing in the video game industry as a whole,” Gonzalez added.

While Microsoft executives have said that the Seattle tech giant won’t stand in the way of union efforts at Activision, the game developer has taken steps perceived as anti-union among its workers—such as leaving Raven Software employees out of a pay bump for quality assurance testers and proposing contract language that would prevent workers from organizing. Raven workers began organizing after walking off the job in December in protest of Activision’s decision to lay off 12 quality assurance contractors.

In a statement, Sara Steffens, secretary-treasurer for the Communications Workers of America labor union backing Raven’s Game Workers Alliance, said “Activision did everything it could, including breaking the law, to try to prevent the Raven QA workers from forming their union.”

“Quality assurance workers at Raven Software are bringing much-needed change to Activision and to the video game industry,” Steffens said. “At this critical time for the company and its employees, these workers will soon have an enforceable union contract and a voice on the job.”

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The Impact of Authentic Storytelling. LA Latino/a Founders and Funders Tell All

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

The Impact of Authentic Storytelling. LA Latino/a Founders and Funders Tell All
Decerry Donato

As one of the most diverse cities in the world, Los Angeles is home to almost 5 million people who identify as Hispanic or Latinx. Yet, many feel they still lack representation in the city’s tech space.

“I can safely say that last year’s LA tech week hosted all of the events on the west side, and very few were focused on telling Latino and Latina entrepreneurial stories,” said Valeria Martinez, investor at VamosVentures. “We wanted to change that this year.”

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LA Tech Week Day 3: Social Highlights
Evan Xie

L.A. Tech Week has brought venture capitalists, founders and entrepreneurs from around the world to the California coast. With so many tech nerds in one place, it's easy to laugh, joke and reminisce about the future of tech in SoCal.

Here's what people are saying about day three of L.A. Tech Week on social:

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LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys
Decerry Donato

Women remain a minority among startup founders. According to Pitchbook, even though women-led startups in the United States received a record $20.8 billion in funding during the first half of 2022, U.S. companies with one or more female founders received less than 20% of total venture funding in 2022. U.S. companies solely led by female founders received less than 2% of the total funding.

The panel, titled Female Founders: Planning, Pivoting, Profiting, was moderated by NYU law professor Shivani Honwad and featured Anjali Kundra, co-founder of bar inventory software Partender; Montré Moore, co-founder of the Black-owned beauty startup AMP Beauty LA; Mia Pokriefka, co-founder and CEO of the interactive social media tool Huxly; and Sunny Wu, founder and CEO of fashion company LE ORA.

The panelists shared their advice and insights on starting and growing a business as a woman. They all acknowledged feeling pressure to not appear weak among peers, especially as a female founder. But this added weight only causes more stress that may lead to burnout.

“The mental health aspect of being a founder should not be overshadowed,” said Kundra, who realized this during the early stages of building her company with her brother..

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Kundra was surrounded by the startup culture where, “everyone is crushing it!” But she said that no one really opened up about the challenges of starting your own company. .

“Once you grow up as a founder in that environment, it's pretty toxic,” Kundra said. “I felt like I really wanted to be open and be able to go to our investors and tell them about challenges because businesses go up and down, markets go up and down and no company is perfect.”

Honwad, who advocates for women’s rights, emphasized the value of aligning yourself with people with similar values in the tech ecosystem. “[Those people] can make your life better not just from an investment and money standpoint, but also a personal standpoint, because life happens,” she said.

Moore, who unexpectedly lost one of her co-founders at AMP Beauty, said that entrepreneurs “really have to learn how to adapt to [their] circumstances.”

“She was young, healthy, vibrant and we've been sorority sisters and friends over the past decade,” she said about her co-founder Phyllicia Phillips, who passed away in February. “So it was just one of those moments where you have to take a pause.”

Moore said this experience forced her to ask for help, which many founders hesitate to do. She encouraged the audience to try and share their issues out loud with their teams because there are always people who will offer help. When Moore shared her concerns with her investors, they jumped in to support her in ways she didn’t think was possible.

Kundra said that while it is important to have a support group and listen to mentors, it is very important for entrepreneurs to follow their own thinking and pick and choose what they want to implement within their strategy. “At the end of the day, you really have to own your own decisions,” she said.

Kundra also said that while it is easy to turn to your colleagues and competitors and do what they are doing, you shouldn’t always follow them because every business is different.

“When I was in the heat of it, I kind of became [a part of] this echo chamber and that was really challenging for us,” Kundra added, “but we were able to move beyond it and figure out what worked for us [as a company] and we're still on a journey. You're always going to be figuring it out, so just know you're not alone.”

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