As of the 1st of July, Activision Blizzard will make all of its temporary and contract Quality Assurance employees full-time employees.
A while back we brought you the news of proposed protest action by staff at Raven software as their QA testers were being laid off in an unfair manner.
It now seems that Activision Blizzard has stood and taken notice and acted accordingly converting All the temporary contracts to full0time ones thus giving these employees benefits they would otherwise not qualify for.
Many workers will see salary increases, and the minimum hourly rate will increase to $20 per hour from the 17th of April. Workers will be eligible for benefits and can participate in a bonus plan like permanent employees.
Bringing those workers on board as employees, according to the company, will strengthen its development resources and expand the number of full-time employees by 25%. Nearly 500 other temp and contract positions throughout its studios were recently converted to full-time employees.
After several Raven QA contractors were let go, Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout in December. The following month, QA employees at the studio revealed their intention to form a union, making them the first AAA game employees in North America to do so.
Activision Blizzard was reluctant in going with this plan and instead shuffled a few employees around to other departments, despite the reluctance, Raven employees went forward with forming the union through the National Labor Relations Board.
The new pay raises and upgrades won’t apply to the Raven employees though “due to legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act.”
The CWA responded to Activision’s claims calling the move “galling” that “Activision has excluded Raven Software QA workers, who have been at the forefront of this effort, from these benefits. Activision responded to Kotaku by citing Labor Board v. Exchange Parts Co., 375 U.S. 405 (1964) which states employers could violate the National Labor Relations Act if they confer economic benefits on its employees for the purpose of inducing them to vote against the union.
With all of this in mind, it appears that Activision Blizzard has offered these employees pay raises and increased benefits in order to spite the Raven employees who decided to form their own union, leaving us to wonder if the toxic work environment at Activision Blizzard will ever change, even with the company’s recent pending acquisition by Microsoft.