Activision Blizzard To Begin Negotiations With Unionized Employees

Kristin Snyder

Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.

Activision Blizzard To Begin Negotiations With Unionized Employees
Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Activision Blizzard will begin labor negotiations with recently unionized workers at its Raven Software subsidiary, the Santa Monica-based video game publisher said today.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick sent a letter to employees Friday morning stating that the company will “engage in good faith negotiations to enter into a collective bargaining agreement” with the Communications Workers of America, the labor union representing the 27 organized quality assurance testers at Wisconsin-based Raven Software.


“While first labor contracts can take some time to complete, we will meet CWA leaders at the bargaining table and work toward an agreement that supports the success of all our employees,” Kotick wrote in the letter.

The CEO noted that Activision has recently taken measures to increase pay for quality assurance testers and turned temporary jobs into full-time positions—though the unionized Raven Software, all of whom are full-time employees, were notably excluded from pay raises earlier this year. ABetterABK, an Activision workers’ group that has mobilized the company’s Los Angeles-area employees, tweeted Friday that those measures “were done as concessions from mounting employee pressure to try to stop unionization from occurring.”

After forming in January, Raven Software’s Game Workers Alliance union was officially certified in a vote last month—solidifying the first labor union at a major video game publisher in the U.S. and legally obligating Activision to negotiate with the union on a collective bargaining agreement.

The vote came after Activision refused to voluntarily recognize the union despite Microsoft—which is in the midst of acquiring Activision for around $69 billion—stating that it “will not stand in the way” of unionization efforts. Microsoft president Brad Smith expanded on those views in a blog post earlier this month, laying out “a new set of principles” around how it would engage with organized workers.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db

Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.

Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit
Photo: Relativity Space

The largest 3D-printed object to ever fly had liftoff yesterday as Long Beach-based Relativity Space launched its Terran 1 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Terran 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at around 7 p.m. PST March 22. It was Relativity’s third attempt at sending Terran 1 to the cosmos and the nighttime launch was quite a sight to behold. The clarity of the night sky was perfect to see the blue jets of flame cascading out of Terran 1’s nine Aeon 1 engines, all 3D-printed, as the rocket took off.

Read moreShow less
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

Sports Stadiums Are Turning to Immersive Sound to Keep Fans Engaged

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Sports Stadiums Are Turning to Immersive Sound to Keep Fans Engaged
Photo: Edge Sound Research

In 2020, the Minnesota Twins experimented with a new technology that brought fans the ability to physically feel the sounds they were hearing in the stadium in the back of their seats as part of a new immersive way to experience baseball.

The tech was made by Riverside-based startup Edge Sound Research, which built a mobile lounge – basically, a small seating section equipped with its technology and on wheels to travel around the stadium – for Twins fans to experience what it calls “embodied audio” around Target field. It was a bid on the Twins’ part to keep fans more engaged during the game, and Edge Sound Research CEO Valtteri Salomaki said the Twins were impressed.

Read moreShow less
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing

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.

B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing
Provided by LAV

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, B Capital Group General Partner and Chair Howard Morgan discusses his thoughts on early stage investing and the importance of company ownership.


Read moreShow less
RELATEDEDITOR'S PICKS
LA TECH JOBS
interchangeLA
Trending