They take care of the consumers, but not of the workers. This is the summary of statement issued by the CWA (Union of Communications Workers of America), regarding the attempt to block the purchase of Activision Blizzard by the FTC, which, as we already know, yesterday officially confirmed that it had formalized the complaint to prevent the purchase of the American giant, based almost exclusively on the arguments made by Sony and nothing else. They hadn’t even considered the current situation of Activision Blizzard and its workers.
Because really the announcement of the takeover of Activision almost saved his life. At a time when internal complaints, worker protests, and massive malpractice controversies even encompassed topics like sexual harassment, Microsoft’s announcement meant that everything could get better. It got to the point where there was talk of creating unions within specific departments (Q&A for example), which Redmond said he wouldn’t object to. For it, FTC Ruling Directly Prevents Improved Conditions for Activision Blizzard Workers. This is an excerpt from the statement:
By filing an administrative lawsuit to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has missed an opportunity to show that it takes the employment impact of these large acquisitions seriously. Instead, the FTC has once again focused on looking at consumer harm alone and, in this case, current console market leader Sony’s concerns about increased competition.
The CWA also blames Sony
As we can read in the CWA’s own statement below, Activision Blizzard would still use its remaining power until the purchase is effective to resist any efforts by workers to organize and form a union to fight. for their labor rights.
For this precise reason, the CWA, which was aware of this situation, believed that the union with Microsoft would finally allow the workers to act, which is why both began negotiations to show the regulators their good faith and their efforts. to resolve monopoly doubts, resulting in Microsoft’s legal settlement with the CWA itself. It is appropriate to end the article with the last sentence in reference to the FTC:
We believe that the case brought by the FTC will not convince a federal judge, especially since the European Commission could move to approve the agreement and that Activision Blizzard workers will finally have the opportunity to improve their wages, benefits and working conditions through your union.
