Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, speaks at the Allen&Co annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
A group of about 600 software testers at Activision formed the U.S. video game industry’s largest union yet on Friday.
The union is the first to organize under a new labor contract negotiated as part of the Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision in October, the company’s largest acquisition ever.
The agreement required Microsoft to remain neutral toward employees who expressed interest in unionizing and to provide adequate lines of communication and information for those workers to decide. The labor neutrality agreement went into effect after the Microsoft-Activision deal closed in October, following months of regulatory resistance.
“We have maintained our commitment to remain neutral during the organizing campaign and after this vote,” Microsoft attorney Amy Pannoni said in a statement.
In January, Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees from its gaming division.
Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA, the name of the union, is seeking higher wages and more career opportunities, quality assurance tester Kara Fannon said in a statement.
The employees, who work for Activision’s quality assurance division in California, Texas and Minnesota, joined the Communications Workers of America to form their record-breaking alliance.
“Microsoft remains committed to letting workers decide for themselves whether they want a union,” CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said in a statement.
Labor organizing in the tech sector has proliferated over the years as large tech companies have grown and come under greater scrutiny for worker protections.
Activision’s quality assurance workers, who review games for anomalies and bugs, particularly emphasized the need for job protection, noting that their roles feel undervalued compared to engineers or software developers.
Before the Microsoft-Activision deal was finalized, quality control workers at the video game maker’s Albany branch also formed a union.
“QA is currently an underappreciated discipline in the games and software industry,” Albany wrote means of social communication at the moment. “We are committed to fostering work environments where we are respected and rewarded for our essential role in the development process.”