Activision Blizzard Albany to vote on union

The National Labor Relations Board has approved a union vote for Activision Blizzard's QA team in Albany.

The vote: 21 testers will vote in a union election.

• The board has given the team of 21 workers the green light to vote on unionization, as per The Washington Post.
• Activision Blizzard previously argued against the movement, insisting that it should include the entirety of the studio rather than just the QA team.
• This was rejected by the NLRB which believes that the low pay of the team deems it suitable to class them as a distinct group within the rest of Blizzard Albany.
• The Call of Duty publisher attempted a similar move when Raven Software's QA team motioned to form a union, suggesting it should include the entire studio. The attempt didn't work and the quality assurance voted in favor of the union.

Pushback? Some think that Activision Blizzard attempted to stop a union from happening.

• It's believed by some that companies push for studio-wide votes as, typically, it makes unionization less likely to go ahead.
• Regardless, in the case of Blizzard Albany it's going to a vote. Ballots will be received by the QA team later in October and shall be counted on a video conference on November 18.
• “Given our tightly integrated operations in Albany, all of our eligible non-supervisory employees there should have a voice and be allowed to vote, not just the approximately 20 quality assurance testers picked by the union," Activision Blizzard's Rich George told The Washington Post.