Activision-Blizzard Thread: Just announced the Layoffs of 1900 jobs.

Employees have filed a new lawsuit against Activision Blizzard accusing the company of using "coercive tactics" to prevent organisational efforts to improve working conditions - amid ongoing legal action by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging sexual harassment, discrimination, and a "frat boy" work culture at Blizzard.

Following that first filing, organisational efforts by employees saw more than 2000 current and former Activision Blizzard staff sign a petition describing the company's initial, widely lambasted response to the lawsuit as "abhorrent and insulting", with subsequent strike action seeing more than 500 workers walk out and "hundreds" more participate virtually around the world in an effort to improve working conditions.

However, the new lawsuit, filed to the National Labor Review Board by the ABetterABK worker collective in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America, alleges Activision Blizzard has, within the last six months, "engaged in and is engaging in unfair labour practices" that violate laws laid out in the National Labor Relations Act.

"Activision Blizzard management is using coercive tactics to attempt to prevent its employees from exercising their rights to stand together and demand a more equitable, sustainable, and diverse workplace," the CWA wrote in a press release announcing the legal action. "It is their right as workers to organise for a work environment free from abuse, discrimination and sexual harassment, and this right is protected by federal labor law."

According to the filing, Activision Blizzard has "threatened employees that they cannot talk about or communicate about wages, hours and working conditions", has told employees they "cannot communicate with or discuss ongoing investigations of wages, hours, and working conditions", has "maintained an overly broad social media policy" and enforced that policy "against employees who have engaged in protected concerted activity" (ie. worker activity protected under federal law), has "treated or disciplined employees on account of protected concerted activity", "engaged in surveillance of employees engaged in protected concerted activity", and "engaged in interrogation of employees about protected concerted activity".

That "protected concerted activity" has included petitioning for improved working conditions at Activision Blizzard, with ABetterABK having continued to list four demands: an end to forced arbitration in employment agreements, the adoption of inclusive recruitment and hiring practices, increases in pay transparency through compensation metrics, and an audit of ABK policies and practices to be performed by a neutral third-party.

Activision Blizzard has so far met one of those demands by commissioning a third-party audit of ABK practices and policies. However, its choice of company, WilmerHale, has come in for considerable criticism given the law firm's reputation for union busting.

This latest legal action isn't the first to accuse Activision Blizzard of shenanigans in its response to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing's initial allegations. The DFEH recently updated its lawsuit, alleging Activision Blizzard's HR department had shredded documents related to staff complaints and internal investigations - a claim the Call of Duty publisher described as "not true".

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Coglestop said:

Sad part is, even if Activision Blizzard goes under, their corpse will simple be scavenged by EA and Take2, who aren't much better. Only chance at real reform in the industry is unionization and the addition of a few more players in the AAA space.

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Daith said:

So it doesn’t matter whether guilty or not, burn it all down. Gotcha.

I mean sure he could have been involved and possibly put an end to to things, but I don’t care to assume that everyone at the company is horrible just because they worked there in management.

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U.S. Government Now Investigating Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick Subpoenaed

The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into the publisher’s handling of harassment and abuse allegations

kotaku.com

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly launched a wide-reaching investigation into Activision Blizzard, with the government agency looking into how the embattled publisher handled the multiple allegations of sexual harassment, abuse, and toxic behavior that became public following a California Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit filed in July. The SEC has subpoenaed Activision and several of its high-ranking execs, including CEO Bobby Kotick.

In a report out today by the Wall Street Journal, it was revealed the SEC has begun investigating Activision Blizzard and is asking for the Call of Duty and Warcraft publisher to hand over various documents. These include the personnel files of six previous employees and records of CEO Kotick’s communications with executives relating to the numerous complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination levied against Activision Blizzard staff.

Activision spokesperson Helaine Klasky confirmed with the Wall Street Journal on Monday that the SEC was indeed investigating the massive gaming publisher, telling the outlet that SEC is focused on “the company’s disclosures regarding employment matters and related issues.” She also confirmed that several current and former employees had been subpoenaed by the federal agency. “The company is cooperating with the SEC,” said Klasky.




Kotaku has contacted Activision Blizzard about the SEC investigation.

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The investigation is not necessarily about finding justice for the victims of the horrible abuse, but instead about looking out for the company’s investors who probably aren’t happy about its recent cycle of bad news. The WSJ explains that the SEC is investigating to figure out whether Activision and its executives correctly and adequately disclosed allegations of workplace harassment and gender-pay issues to investors and other related individuals and if these disclosures happened quickly enough, according to the documents seen by the outlet.


This is yet another serious legal problem facing Activision Blizzard, one of the largest gaming publishers in the world.
In July, a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing after a years-long investigation turned up stories of multiple women suffering daily harassment and abuse while working at Activision Blizzard. This has led to multiple execs apologizing or even leaving the company. Blizzard games containing the names of abusers are being scrubbed by devs to remove the offenders from the live games. Investors filed a second lawsuit against the publisher in August, over the timing of when Activision Blizzard disclosed its ongoing problems with sexual harassment and discrimination.

The fallout from the California lawsuit and the resulting allegations of abuse and toxic behavior has led to employees walking out, more stories of workplace abuse becoming public, players and streamers boycotting games like World of Warcraft, and greatly increased talk of unionization.

Activision Blizzard sent a statement to the WSJ addressing the SEC investigation and the ongoing pressure Activision Blizzard faces from lawsuits and government agencies:

We have made and are making a number of important changes to improve our policies and procedures to ensure that there is no place anywhere in our company for discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind.

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Meanwhile, Activision hired union-busting firm WilmerHale to review its handling of harassment and other issues around the fallout from the lawsuit. It’s interesting to note that the person leading that review happens to be Stephanie Avakian, who was the SEC’s Division of Enforcement Director up until this past February, when she left to rejoin WilmerHale and oversee its team for protecting businesses from government litigation.

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