This Wednesday, Activision Blizzard employees are demonstrating against their management. A mobilization whose aim will be to denounce the publisher’s ostrich policy after the numerous allegations of harassment and sexism against him.
Activision Blizzard rejects harassment allegations
Last week, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard. A lawsuit following a two-year investigation into which the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (the American equivalent of the Directorate-General for Labor) observed a sexist culture and widespread harassment practice in the developer’s offices.
In response to this complaint, the publishing house quickly communicated its position to Kotaku and its staff. In his opinion, the facts reported by the DFEH are largely distorted, exaggerated or simply wrong. A position in which the thousands of employees who have chosen to make their voices clear are clearly not recognized.
After hundreds of testimonials on the Internet, an open letter was sent to the management of Activision Blizzard. This puts the public response of the company into perspective “Loathsome and Offensive” against employees who have suffered harassment and sexism, and calls for the sacking of Frances Townsend, a company executive. A letter that has now been signed by more than 2,500 former or current employees of the publishing house according to the magazine Axios !
The employees of the publishing house share their demands
So tomorrow, Activision Blizzard employees will go even further. The latter will organize a demonstration to make their voices heard and to break away from the position of society.
- New recruitment guidelines, Recruitment and promotion to improve employee representation at all levels
- The establishment ofTransparency of remuneration and promotions
- The realization ofan audit of the management of Activision Blizzard from an external and independent company. The company’s personnel and management procedures are also mentioned as part of this audit.
With the measures taken to deal with Covid-19, several employees are now working remotely. Because of this, the strike on Wednesday June 28th will be both physical and virtual. The staffing of the Irvine Campus, where Blizzard is headquartered, will therefore be manned for part of the day, while a virtual meeting will be offered from morning to evening.
Such an event is extremely rare in the video game industry. Only Riot Games, which plunged into similar scandals in 2019, has already seen organized protests by some of its employees. At that time, 150 people gathered and mobilized to denounce the company’s practices. So tomorrow, Activision Blizzard employees will have the opportunity to send a strong message to their management. And no doubt for the rest of the video game industry as well.