Activision QA Unionize, Largest in Industry

Despite the Strawbs 1973 hit being that very thing, a hit, I’m always surprised at the pushback against Unions. Particularly in US companies, the act of forming a union is quite difficult to do without questionable practices by the C-suite. As reported by Polygon late last week, Microsoft has voluntarily recognized a union formed by QA testers under the Activision banner. As announced by the Communication Workers of America, 600~ of the Activision Central Quality Assurance United – CWA have formed one of the largest unions in gaming.

Employees from California, Texas, and Minnesota are to be represented by this union, with 390 workers voting for and only 8 against, according to the CWA. As Polygon notes in its article, Microsoft, now parent company to Activision-Blizzard|King, had signed an agreement with the CWA in 2022 for the company’s neutrality on unions. Something that some of those who formed unions in Blizzard Albany, Raven Software, or even ZeniMax know about. The latter previously being the largest union in gaming with more than 300 workers.

“Microsoft continues to keep its commitment to let workers decide for themselves whether they want a union,” said CWA president Claude Cummings Jr to Gamesindustry.biz. Something commendable for Microsoft for doing the bare minimum while others (Starbucks, Amazon) do the opposite.

Kara Fannon, QA tester for Activision and organizing committee from the Eden Prairie branch of the union, said to Polygon, “Something we organized around is that in this industry, QA and customer service are the lowest paid jobs, and often looked down upon either within the industry or by customers.”

Fannon goes on to note that finding bugs is just seen as something small, even if QA testers are finding thousands. “So why is QA [unionizing], as opposed to other people in the industry?” Fannon asks before making her point clear, “We have the weakest protections currently and we want to make sure that we’re strong so our work can keep going the way it is — we want to be supporting these games and working really hard on them.“

Speaking with Gamesindustry.Biz, Fannon also noted, “Quality Assurance roles are described as a way to get your foot in the door in the video game industry, but the truth is at best we get the internal job posting before the public does. We’re ready to grow our careers here, and believe that having a strong union contract will set workers and the company up for success.“

CWA president Claude Cummings Jr also said to Gamesindustry.Biz, “Time and again, other big companies in the industry have made the decision to undermine and attack their own employees when they join together to form a union. Microsoft’s choice will strengthen its corporate culture and ability to serve its customers and should serve as a model for the industry.” This is seemingly the case, according to some other quotes given by Fannon and the reaction to this news.

Fannon told Polygon, “It’s nice to know that everyone’s gonna hear about this, and that people can be inspired to form their own unions. I went to a conference and there were some people who were part of Starbucks Workers United. They were talking and I was feeling so inspired. [T]hen I realized, people might feel that way about what we’re doing. It hasn’t really hit about how monumental it is. But it feels really good to be a part of.“

As the industry on the whole has a tectonic shift, roughly more than 10,000 employees have been laid off in the last year. At least 9,000 in 2023 alone. A union won’t save every job, people know this, but it has saved some jobs within the industry over the last few months, even though SEGA of America union busted last year. Despite this, the SEGA of America union saved 18 jobs as cuts were made in February. With heavy lay-off periods and studio closures not coming to an end, I think we’re going to continually see this “largest union in the games industry” headline a lot, and grow exponentially.