Following ex-CEO Bobby Kotick describing authorized motion taken towards his former firm Activision Blizzard as “pretend lawsuits”, which he claims have been pushed by a union’s “plan” to extend its membership numbers, the ABK Staff Alliance has responded by way of social media.
“The trauma, discrimination, and abuse that our coworkers and former coworkers endured isn’t pretend or a “plan to drive union membership”, it wrote, “Our unions have been born from the very actual and dangerous means executives reacted when made conscious of those conditions.
“The executives of our firm didn’t shield us, and infrequently made the scenario worse or straight perpetuated the hurt. That’s the reason we determined to face up for ourselves and make our firm higher, a spot the place we really lived by our core values and appeared out for each other.
“A standard misinformation tactic utilized by firms throughout a union marketing campaign is to say {that a} union is a 3rd get together that is available in and makes adjustments. This isn’t true. The employees are the union. We aren’t a 3rd get together on the lookout for firms to prey on. We’re employees with a vested curiosity in making our firm the very best it may be.”
www.eurogamer.internet/bobby-kotick…
The trauma, discrimination, and abuse that our coworkers and former coworkers endured isn’t pretend or a “plan to drive union membership”. Our unions have been born from the very actual and dangerous means executives reacted when made conscious of those conditions.
[image or embed]
— ABetterABK – ABK Staff Alliance 💙 (@abetterabk.bsky.social) 12 February 2025 at 21:26
Kotick’s feedback got here on the Grit Podcast of American enterprise capital agency Kleiner Perkins. He stated of a 2021 petition signed by over 1000 present and former Activision Blizzard staff which criticised the corporate’s response to the discrimination and harassment lawsuit filed towards it by the state of California, “That was pretend”.
“I can let you know precisely what occurred,” the previous CEO acknowledged, “The Communication Staff of America union began taking a look at know-how. They stored shedding as a result of they represented the Information Guild, Comcast, and so they realised they have been shedding members at a very dramatic fee, in order that they gotta determine how do they get new union members? In order that they first focused a bunch of various companies – Google, another tech firms, Tesla and SpaceX, and us.”
“It is the facility of unions. I did not actually perceive this till we went by this course of. They have been in a position to get a authorities company, the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] and a state employment company known as the Division of Truthful Employment and Housing [DFEH], to file pretend lawsuits towards firms like us and Riot Video games making allegations concerning the office that did not… they weren’t true, however they have been in a position to do that.”
“They got here up with this plan, employed a PR agency, and so they began attacking our firm,” Kotick claimed, “They received these two companies to file these lawsuits to claimed there was some sexual harassment on the firm. We did not have any of that, and in the end they needed to admit that this was not truthful and withdraw the complaints.”
Each lawsuits have been settled by Activision Blizzard, with payouts being made to claimants within the fits and the California Civil Rights Division stating as a part of this that “no courtroom or any impartial investigation has substantiated any allegations [of] systemic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard”.
