Blizzard Proletariat support studio workers aim to unionize

The campaign involves all non-managerial workers.

On Tuesday, employees of Proletariat, the Boston-based studio that Blizzard bought earlier this year to support the development of World of Warcraft, announced that they had recently filed a request for union election to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Proletariat is the third Activision Blizzard studio to announce a labor campaign in 2022, but where past campaigns at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany involved those studios' quality assurance officers, Proletariat's effort includes all non-executive workers. The 57 workers who want to form the Alliance of Proletarian Workers include animators, game designers and software engineers. The group is seeking representation from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union that helped quality assurance staff at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany organize.

"Everyone in the video game industry knows Activision Blizzard's reputation for creating a hostile work environment, so earlier this year when we learned that Blizzard was planning to acquire Proletariat, we started to discuss how we could protect the great culture we've created here," said Dustin Yost, software engineer at Proletariat. "By forming a union and negotiating a contract, we can make sure we're able to continue to do our best and create innovative experiences at the frontier of game development."

The Alliance of Proletarian Workers has asked Activision Blizzard to voluntarily recognize its union. "Our top priority remains our employees and we continue to believe that a direct relationship with them is the most productive," an Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Engadget. "We appreciate the contributions the talented Proletariat team has made since joining our company this summer. We have received the petition and will provide an official public response to the NLRB in the coming days."

Proletariat employees say they aim to preserve the studio's "progressive and people-first" perks, including its flexible paid vacation policy and robust healthcare options. Additionally, they want to protect the studio from crunch, the practice of forcing mandatory overtime during game development. They ask management to commit to a non-mandatory overtime policy and implement implement better wage and health protections for workers who accept voluntary overtime. The Proletarian Labor Alliance says their co-workers should also not be penalized in performance reviews for not taking on extra work.

In June, Microsoft announced that it would respect all of Activision Blizzard's unionization efforts following the conclusion of its $68.7 billion deal to buy the publisher. Earlier this month, the FTC sued the tech giant to block the merger.

Update 3:50 PM: Added comment from Activision Blizzard.

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