In a major development for the esports and gaming industry, nearly 400 Activision Blizzard workers from the Platform & Technology department have officially unionised with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
The union was formed via signing an authorisation card and an online voting portal through which employees expressed their desire for union representation.
The move is now officially recognised by Microsoft, Activision Blizzard’s parent company since 2023, which means the workers have taken another step to secure fairer labor conditions and greater stability for teams supporting Battle.net, the backbone of Blizzard’s esports ecosystem.
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Daniel Weltz, Principal Software Engineer and member of the organizing committee, stated that “Our culture is our people, and we can’t afford to lose that. We are forming a union to hold leadership accountable and to ensure that we can focus on building amazing experiences for the gaming community.”
The newly unionised units are based in Irvine, California, and Austin, Texas and the majority of the employees are from the software engineers, project managers, localisation experts, and designers department who are the spine of the various popular esports titles like Overwatch 2, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone.
From a business perspective, the unionisation could reduce Blizzard’s estimated annual turnover rate as the company has to ensure better job security and compensation; otherwise, the continuity of Battle.net operations that underpin major esports events like the Overwatch Champions Series would be at stake.
