CWA Union Calling for EU to Approve Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Acquisition - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 20 February 2023 / 5,639 Views
The Communications Workers of America (CWA), one of America's largest unions, in a letter sent to the European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager urged the European Union regulators to approve Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition.
"When the Microsoft acquisition was announced, we studied the implications for labor markets and raised concerns about the potential for increased employer power over workers that could worsen labor monopsony, leading to lower wages and less bargaining power over working conditions," reads the letter from CWA President Christopher Shelton.
"After we raised those concerns, we were able to enter a dialogue with Microsoft that resulted in an agreement to ensure the workers of Activision Blizzard have a clear path to collective bargaining if the merger is completed.
"Microsoft's binding commitments will give employees a seat at the table and ensure that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard benefits the company's workers and the broader video game labor market. Collective bargaining is an effective counterbalance to employer power over the labor market, as is well documented in empirical research."
The letter continues, "This labor-management compact is particularly groundbreaking and important because it reflects a shared understanding that the current U.S. labor law regime does not deliver on the rights it professes to guarantee.
"As the case of Activision Blizzard has shown, workers who seek to form unions in the United States today face severe barriers to exercising basic rights of freedom of association, with frequent firings of union supporters well-documented but not discouraged through any meaningful consequences."
The CWA says the European Commission has a chance to make a serious impact on the video game labor market and hopes the regulators "will approve this merger and help make history in rebalancing
power in labor markets."
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I'm glad that the union supports the merger. Anybody with any understanding of the video game market, excluding Sony, supports the merger. Presumably a union that represents some people in and around the industry understands it, so that makes sense.
With that said, it's not clear to me why European regulators would care what an American Union has to say. Should I be writing letters to the European regulators as an American citizen?
Unless there are extra bits left out of the article above, it seems the CWA is addressing labour (spelt correctly) laws/employee rights and not touching on the main reasons the regulators are looking at this so closely - namely Microsofts potentially restricting availability of content, unfair position in cloud gaming, etc.
Spelled*
Spelt :). (you can look it up)
USA USA USA
Depends on your country (you can look it up)
To be fair, that’s the main job of unions. They’re not concerned about the economic bits. However… As a union man myself, I still question their logic here. Reducing the number of competitors by supporting such mass consolidation will inevitably hurt the rights and benefits of workers in the long run. If too many devs are owned/ influenced by MS’s excessive position, it will make take away the bargaining options for game developers wishing to unionize in the future.
Labor and labour are both correct. Just like armor/armour, color/colour. Shorter version are only Americans preferred way of spelling them.
I would prefer if the lawmaker would boost labour rights. But in the current era of neoliberism it seems unlikely, especially in the US. So making such agreements with big companies which also pushes it as some sort of standard for the industry as a whole is a good thing.
Right wing governments & their appointed agency puppets don’t care about Unions. Actually they despise them.
So when unisons are rightfully saying that workers conditions will improve under Xbox….it has zero impact. But it really should.
Do you really believe that MS sudden openness toward Unions is altruistic or based on the fact that they see the perceived negatives being outweighed by the positives in this case a positive Union response toward the acquisition instead of the usual negative response toward large acquisitions along with the usual corporate anti union stance being tempered by it being limited to a specific lower paid section of game development .
People fail to realize how many jobs are on the line if this merger fails.. and on a site where people were bashing MS for not renewing 10k contractors. Its mind baffling really.
Zero jobs really - AKB will carry on as is. They don't need the merger....actually correction they need to reduce their headcount by 1.
There are people at the company that want change and if it fails that change wont happen and expect a mass exodus. And that 1 guy will remain in power.
Why do you think the bloody unions are getting involved.. man this site.
The unions are here for self interest the same self interest that suddenly made MS union friendly when it comes to unionising Activision/ Blizzard game testers.
Unions are created to protect the employees. Thats why they exist. When unions get involved its to speak on the behalf of the employees.
I'm talking specifically about there support of this merger.
How many jobs are on the line?
zero
I believe more jobs will actually be lost if the merger goes through!!!
