Activision Blizzard studio Proletariat to form union

Activision Blizzard has two unions moving into negotiations for contract agreements. Now, there is a third sister studio. Boston-based workers World of WarcraftProletariat, the support studio, is unionizing with Communications Workers of America. They are similar to Raven Software or Blizzard Albany before them. Proletariat’s group of 57 workers, which includes all of the studio’s positions except management, is called Proletariat Workers Alliance. Their petition was filed in December.

Activision Blizzard did not respond to our request for voluntary recognition.

Proletariat Workers Alliance is looking to secure the company’s current paid time-off plan, as well as flexible remote options, healthcare benefits, and ensuring transparency and diversity are top priorities. Activision Blizzard has not responded to Polygon’s request for comment.

“At Proletariat and with our peers across the industry, many of us love our jobs,” Proletariat senior engineer Dustin Yost told Polygon. “We at Proletariat care a lot about our team. Proletariat wants to ensure we have a voice in the future. This will allow us to create content that is beneficial to our team and the company. Doing right by each other is the goal here.”

With Activision Blizzard’s recognition of the union pending, Proletariat Workers Alliance will likely go to a vote with the National Labor Relations Board — the same process that both Raven Software and Blizzard Albany’s QA unions went through. Activision Blizzard challenged the election in both studios’ cases, and sought to expand the proposed bargaining unit beyond QA testers.

To reduce the chances of union votes failing, companies sometimes try to limit the size of units. An NLRB ruling of 2022 allowed organizers to unify smaller units within a company, called micro-units. This puts on the company the burden to show that a group must be open.

CWA filed numerous unfair labor complaints against Activision Blizzard over its alleged union-busting strategies. Activision Blizzard representatives denied any wrongdoing. For Proletariat, the expanded unit likely won’t be an issue: The group is already looking to include all non-managerial workers.

Proletariat was founded by Seth Sivak in 2012. The studio worked independently and on games such as SpellbreakAnd StreamLegendsThe studio had been owned by Activision Blizzard from 2022 until that time. Sivak was now the vice president of Development at Blizzard Entertainment. He oversees Proletariat, a studio based in Boston. World of Warcraft. Polygon spoke with Allison Brown, an engineer in software testing. She said that the union talks began before the acquisition but that they started around the possibility of being able to work together.

“There was a concern that suddenly becoming part of a bigger organization that we might lose some of the things that made Proletariat special,” Brown said.

She continued: “No matter how much trust we have for management […]Things can and will change. I started in the industry 14 years ago, I’ve been laid off more than once. I’ve watched benefits change and get worse. There’s no control over it. But if we’re bargaining collectively, if we get these things in writing, there are mechanisms in place to make sure that we have a voice.”

Both Raven Software, and Blizzard Albany won union votes in 2022. Next, they will negotiate with Activision Blizzard a contract; each union will have its own contracts. Should Proletariat’s workers vote in favor of their union, they’ll do the same, again with their own, separate contract.

Activision Blizzard’s response to previous unionizing efforts has been in contrast with Microsoft’s so-called labor neutrality agreement. The agreement, signed with CWA, means that Microsoft will not interfere with organizing efforts at the company — neither with current Microsoft workers, or with workers potentially joining Microsoft as part of its $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard (currently subject to a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit).

The agreement was tested when ZeniMax Media’s QA workers, who are responsible for franchises like Fallout, Doom and The Elder Scrolls: Doom, made it clear that they were ready to unite. Microsoft agreed to recognize and honor the union following a fast vote in the NLRB. This agreement also allowed Microsoft to avoid a lot bureaucracy. ZeniMax QA workers voted for union authorization cards. They also created an online portal where a majority of workers supported the union.

“Proletariat as a company has always had strong values of transparency and respectful collaboration and understand why those values are important to us,” Yost said. “We believe that unionization is the culmination of these values, and we want to work collaboratively with management. We hope they’re going to choose to remain neutral and voluntarily recognize our union.”