Microsoft reaches agreement to remain neutral in Activision Blizzard union efforts
Microsoft announced it has entered into a labor neutrality agreement with Communications Workers of America (CWA)
By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business
Microsoft on Monday announced it has entered into a labor neutrality agreement with Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union that has been supporting Activision Blizzard employees in their organizing efforts.
The agreement, unusual in the tech industry, has the potential to ease the path for workers at Activision Blizzard to unionize once Microsoft completes its blockbuster $68.7 billion deal to acquire the video game company. The deal is expected to close by next year.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will “take a neutral approach” to employees who express interest in joining a union and will allow employees to communicate openly about unionizing, the company said in a joint press release with CWA.
The agreement further formalizes Microsoft’s support of potential unions within its workforce, which the company’s president, Brad Smith, first expressed in a blog post earlier this month. It also sets the company apart from many of its peers in the tech industry, with unionization efforts at Amazon, Apple and Activision Blizzard turning contentious in the past year.
“Recent unionization campaigns across the country — including in the tech sector — have led us to conclude that inevitably these issues will touch on more businesses, potentially including our own,” Smith wrote previously. “Our employees will never need to organize to have a dialogue with Microsoft’s leaders. But we also recognize the workplace is changing.”
A group of quality assurance employees at Raven Software, a gaming studio owned by Activision Blizzard that works on the company’s popular “Call of Duty” game series, voted to form a union last month. The unionization vote followed months of tensions between Raven and Activision Blizzard over recent layoffs and marked the latest effort by workers to agitate for improved workplace conditions at the troubled video game company.
Activision Blizzard said Friday that it had entered negotiations with CWA on the Raven union, pledging to “engage in good faith negotiations” with the union.
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