Activision exec tells staff that forming a union ‘could affect game quality’

Activision‘s vice president of QA Christian Arends has sent a message to staff that appears to attempt to dissuade them from joining a union.

The message was posted on an internal company Discord channel and was then shared on Twitter by Jessica Gonzalez, the founder of Activision Blizzard employee group A Better ABK.

According to Gonzalez, Arends posted the message in a read-only channel where users aren’t able to reply.

It referred to the recent decision made by a group of quality assurance testers at Call of Duty Warzone developer Raven Software to unionise with the Communication Workers of America.

Raising the issue of whether joining a union would protect employees and provide them with job security, Arends wrote: “Job security here are Activision Blizzard King rests with our ability to produce epic entertainment for our fans.

“A union doesn’t do anything to help us produce world-class games, and the bargaining process is not typically quick, often reduces flexibility, and can be adversarial and lead to negative publicity.

“All of this could hurt our ability to continue creating great games.”

Arends also made employees aware that even if they have signed a union authorisation card, they still don’t have to vote for a union if there’s an election, reminding them that because it would be a secret ballot, they could safely vote against a union.

Last month a 34-strong group called the Game Workers Alliance officially asked parent company Activision Blizzard to recognise the union, which would be the first ever at a major North American game development studio.

A Communication Workers of America spokesperson told Polygon that 78% of eligible QA workers voted to support unionisation.

In November, Activision informed 12 QA workers at Raven that their contracts would be terminated on January 28. The layoffs would reduce Raven’s QA team of 40 staff, which mainly works on Warzone, by just over 30%, according to protestors who had been on strike for nearly two months.

It’s claimed the affected staff were let go in “good standing”, meaning they hadn’t underperformed or committed any sackable offences, and that the dismissals were announced at a time when Warzone was earning $5.2 million daily.