Activision Blizzard staff have hit back at the eyebrow-raising claim made this week by former boss Bobby Kotick that the company’s harassment lawsuits – and an employee petition seeking the CEO’s removal – were “fake”.
The high-profile ABetterABK workers group, which spearheaded much of the company’s employee activism at the time, responded to Eurogamer’s coverage of Kotick’s comments via social media last night and stated that “the executives of our company did not protect us, and often made the situation worse or directly perpetuated the harm”.
“The trauma, discrimination, and abuse that our coworkers and former coworkers endured is not fake or a ‘plan to drive union membership’,” the group stated. “Our unions were born from the very real and harmful way executives reacted when made aware of these situations.”
Speaking via the Grit podcast, Kotick had suggested the legal action Activision Blizzard had faced under his tenure, from multiple US government agencies, had been a “plan” by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union to drive up membership.
“A common misinformation tactic used by companies during a union campaign is to assert that a union is a third party that comes in and makes changes,” ABetterABK’s statement continued. “This is not true. The workers are the union.
“We are not a third party looking for companies to prey on. We are workers with a vested interest in making our company the best it can be.”
Activision Blizzard ultimately settled all of the legal action – meaning payouts to staff who faced harassment at the company, and no evidence of systemic patterns of employee abuse ever proven in court.
Valentine Powell, a former senior UI engineer who led several employee walkouts, additionally responded with a lengthy social media thread commenting on Kotick’s comments, and sharing their perspective on life at the company.
“During my time at Blizzard I was loud and I was vocal about the issues facing our company, I helped spearhead multiple initiatives to remove systemic tools of harm, and I worked with the newly hired DE&I crew to help form several ERGs, set up our first attendance at Pride, and the Inclusion Nexus,” Powell wrote.