Activision Blizzard Employees Start GoFundMe Strike Fund - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 09 December 2021 / 1,876 Views

Activision Blizzard employees have set up a GoFundMe to help support employees who are participating in the latest walkouts at the gaming giant.

"Funds raised from this donation effort will contribute to offsetting wages lost from the work stoppage, as well as to assist in the potential relocation of Raven Software workers who were forced to move without financial assistance at the insistence of Activision Blizzard.," said the GoFundMe organizer Jessica Gonzalez, who is a Blizzard employee.

Most recently Raven Software, a developer that works on Call of Duty: Warzone, had 12 QA employees told their contracts would end on January 28. The 12 laid off accounts for 40 of the employees that are part of Raven's QA team. Following this the Raven QA team and other members of Raven's staff staged a walkout to demand that every member of the QA team, including those laid off, to be offered full time positions.

"In June 2020, an article was published which highlighted the abuse, harassment and discrimination that occurred within Activision-Blizzard's offices," Gonzalez added. "Since then, Activision-Blizzard leaders have continually abused, union-busted, and remained apathetic to the wishes of workers.

"In the months since, we've seen CEO Bobby Kotick and the Board of Directors protect abusers and only hold perpetrators accountable after the events were brought to light by outside media. We've seen Activision hire law firm WilmerHale, known for union busting, to disrupt and impede the improvement efforts of Activision-Blizzard workers. We've seen Raven Software workers lured by the promise of promotion, only to be terminated shortly after relocation on top of the already underappreciated and severely underpaid working conditions of ABK workers across the company. These, and many other events have caused an alliance of Activision-Blizzard employees to initiate a work stoppage until demands are met and worker representation is finally given a place within the company.

"After everything, the Board of Directors still claims to remain confident in Kotick's unfit and unproductive leadership. The Board of Directors includes: Reveta Bowers, Robert Corti, Hendrik Hartong III, Brian Kelly, Bobby Kotick, Barry Meyer, Robert Morgado, Peter Nolan, Dawn Ostroff, Casey Wasserman."

Unionization efforts have begun to ramp up at Activision Blizzard.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.