Blizzard Albany‘s QA team (quality control department including testers) voted on union formation on December 2nd local time and voted in favorActivision BlizzardForeign media say it became the second union under its umbrellaPolygonorThe Washington Postetc. have been reported.
Blizzard Albany is formerly Vicarious Visions and is currently involved in the development of Diablo IV.Regarding the vote that the studio’s QA team held to unionize, Activision Blizzard said that the team was too small with about 20 people, and that “the whole studio should vote for unionization.”He requested a postponement of the tally, and was criticized for “busting the union.”。
Activision Blizzard’s request for a postponement was denied by the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board), but the original voting date was postponed due to inclement weather and the vote was held on December 2nd local time. According to the NLRB, 18 people had the right to vote, and 14 voted in favor and 0 against, excluding the dissent votes, and the union was formed. As GWA Albany, the union joins CODE-CWA (Communications Workers of America – Campaign to Organize Digital Employees) as well as Raven Software’s QA team.
An Activision Blizzard spokesperson also told Polygon, “We still believe the entire Albany team should have voting rights. This is about fundamental fairness and rights for all members of the team. That’s what I’m talking about.”