Activision Blizzard to reorganize Raven QA workers amid union efforts

Activision Blizzard to reorganize Raven QA workers amid union efforts

Image: Raven Software
Days after Raven Software QA workers announced their intention to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), Activision informed workers Monday that it was reorganizing the department. The company broke the news to staff the day Raven QA employees returned to work after a week-long strike.
“In November, we started the process of converting our temporary workers into [full-time employment] status,” Raven Software studio head Brian Raffel said in an email to staff. “Now, I’m excited to share that our quality assurance colleagues will be integrated directly into various studio teams, including animation, art, design, audio, production, and engineering. ” In the email, Raffel said “the decision to join our QA team” had been in the works for “several months.”
A spokesperson for Activision Publishing confirmed to Polygon that the studio is transitioning its QA officers to “integrate” with different departments. The statement, in its entirety, reads as follows:

Today, Raven Software shared an organizational update that continues work the studio began in November that will allow QA teams to work directly alongside animation, art, design, and more. , audio, production and engineering within Raven. This change will improve the way our teams work together to support our games and players and further enhance opportunities for our talented QA staff.
This is the next step in a process that has been carefully considered and underway for some time, and this structure allows Raven to align with best practices from other top Activision studios. It is also an important milestone in our broader plan to further embed quality assurance into the development process as our teams strive to deliver best-in-class coordination in service operations in real time and live.

Although an integrated QA model is apparently consistent across Activision Blizzard’s other studios, CWA’s organizational director Tom Smith called the move “nothing more than a tactic to thwart workers. of Raven QA exercising their right to organize”. Smith is also urging the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to look into Microsoft’s merger announced last week, which will move Activision Blizzard under Microsoft Gaming.
“When management uses meaningless buzzwords like ‘alignment, ‘synergy’ and ‘reorganisation’, it sends a message to workers: ‘we make all the decisions, we have all the power’,” he said. he declares. “Workers are organizing for a voice at work to redress these power imbalances. That’s why big tech mergers that could increase and further concentrate corporate power, like Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, deserve real scrutiny. This scrutiny is even more important when a company like Activision Blizzard prevents its employees from exercising rights protected by US law.
Activision Blizzard didn’t respond to Polygon’s question about what impact this might have on the union, but the spokesperson did elaborate on the working structure.
“It’s accurate to say that Raven QA analysts will work directly within various departments, essentially side-by-side with employees from those departments, on the same platforms and under departmental oversight,” the carrier said. word. “They will also receive daily assignments from these departments. There will always be a Quality Assurance Manager, who will always be responsible for broader work assignments and overall career growth, working with department supervision. »
Integrated QA teams are a relatively new standard in the video game industry and at Activision. In practice, this means that QA officers are not isolated, removed from day-to-day game development practices. Activision Blizzard QA employees told Polygon in August that they often felt isolated from the rest of development, and in extreme cases were asked not to talk to developers. Integrating quality assurance removes these barriers and makes the department part of a larger team.
“For lack of a better term, it really helps humanize the QA process because they really become part of the team,” a QA tester told Polygon. “They’re in meetings, they’re providing feedback, they’re constantly talking to the developers they work with directly every day, they’re not just isolated waiting for the next thing to check.”
They continued, “In my opinion, built-in QA is one of the most important things in development and can really make or break a game, so the fact that they’ve worked on such a large franchise without ‘She’s a little upside down honestly.
Other industry professionals from triple-A and independent studios expressed similar views on social media in response to news of Raven Software’s reorganization.
The issue for Raven Software’s QA workers is the impact this will have on their status and classification as workers. Raven Software’s union, Game Workers Alliance, is currently awaiting a response from Activision Blizzard on whether the company plans to voluntarily recognize the union. If the company chooses not to, quality assurance workers will go to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a vote. Part of this process – apart from voluntary recognition – means that the NLRB will decide whether a group of workers can be classified as a union.
A Raven Software QA employee told Polygon that the group is still trying to figure out how this impacts unionization at the company.
Update (January 25): Activision Blizzard announced Tuesday that it will not voluntarily recognize Raven Software’s union. The company’s full statement is as follows:

At Activision Blizzard, we deeply respect the right of all employees to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union. We carefully reviewed and considered the CWA’s initial request last week and tried to find a mutually agreeable solution with the CWA that would have led to an expedited election process. Unfortunately, the parties could not reach an agreement.
We expect the union to move forward with filing a petition to the NLRB for an election. If filed, the company will formally respond to this request promptly. The most important thing for the company is that every eligible employee has the opportunity to have their voice heard and their individual vote counted, and we believe that all Raven employees should have a say in this decision.
Across the company, we believe that a direct relationship between managers and team members allows us to respond quickly and deliver the best results and opportunities to employees. Through these direct relationships, we’ve made a number of changes over the past two years, including increasing minimum pay for Raven QA employees by 41%, extending paid time off, expanding access to medical benefits for employees and their loved ones, and the transition of more than 60% of Raven QA’s temporary staff to full-time employees. We look forward to continuing a direct dialogue with our team and working together to improve our workplace.

The company has not released a statement regarding the impact the reorganization may have on organizing efforts.

#Activision #Blizzard #reorganize #Raven #workers #union #efforts

Activision Blizzard to reorganize Raven QA workers amid union efforts

Image: Raven Software
Days after Raven Software QA workers announced their intention to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), Activision informed workers Monday that it was reorganizing the department. The company broke the news to staff the day Raven QA employees returned to work after a week-long strike.
“In November, we started the process of converting our temporary workers into [full-time employment] status,” Raven Software studio head Brian Raffel said in an email to staff. “Now, I’m excited to share that our quality assurance colleagues will be integrated directly into various studio teams, including animation, art, design, audio, production, and engineering. ” In the email, Raffel said “the decision to join our QA team” had been in the works for “several months.”
A spokesperson for Activision Publishing confirmed to Polygon that the studio is transitioning its QA officers to “integrate” with different departments. The statement, in its entirety, reads as follows:

Today, Raven Software shared an organizational update that continues work the studio began in November that will allow QA teams to work directly alongside animation, art, design, and more. , audio, production and engineering within Raven. This change will improve the way our teams work together to support our games and players and further enhance opportunities for our talented QA staff.
This is the next step in a process that has been carefully considered and underway for some time, and this structure allows Raven to align with best practices from other top Activision studios. It is also an important milestone in our broader plan to further embed quality assurance into the development process as our teams strive to deliver best-in-class coordination in service operations in real time and live.

Although an integrated QA model is apparently consistent across Activision Blizzard’s other studios, CWA’s organizational director Tom Smith called the move “nothing more than a tactic to thwart workers. of Raven QA exercising their right to organize”. Smith is also urging the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to look into Microsoft’s merger announced last week, which will move Activision Blizzard under Microsoft Gaming.
“When management uses meaningless buzzwords like ‘alignment, ‘synergy’ and ‘reorganisation’, it sends a message to workers: ‘we make all the decisions, we have all the power’,” he said. he declares. “Workers are organizing for a voice at work to redress these power imbalances. That’s why big tech mergers that could increase and further concentrate corporate power, like Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, deserve real scrutiny. This scrutiny is even more important when a company like Activision Blizzard prevents its employees from exercising rights protected by US law.
Activision Blizzard didn’t respond to Polygon’s question about what impact this might have on the union, but the spokesperson did elaborate on the working structure.
“It’s accurate to say that Raven QA analysts will work directly within various departments, essentially side-by-side with employees from those departments, on the same platforms and under departmental oversight,” the carrier said. word. “They will also receive daily assignments from these departments. There will always be a Quality Assurance Manager, who will always be responsible for broader work assignments and overall career growth, working with department supervision. »
Integrated QA teams are a relatively new standard in the video game industry and at Activision. In practice, this means that QA officers are not isolated, removed from day-to-day game development practices. Activision Blizzard QA employees told Polygon in August that they often felt isolated from the rest of development, and in extreme cases were asked not to talk to developers. Integrating quality assurance removes these barriers and makes the department part of a larger team.
“For lack of a better term, it really helps humanize the QA process because they really become part of the team,” a QA tester told Polygon. “They’re in meetings, they’re providing feedback, they’re constantly talking to the developers they work with directly every day, they’re not just isolated waiting for the next thing to check.”
They continued, “In my opinion, built-in QA is one of the most important things in development and can really make or break a game, so the fact that they’ve worked on such a large franchise without ‘She’s a little upside down honestly.
Other industry professionals from triple-A and independent studios expressed similar views on social media in response to news of Raven Software’s reorganization.
The issue for Raven Software’s QA workers is the impact this will have on their status and classification as workers. Raven Software’s union, Game Workers Alliance, is currently awaiting a response from Activision Blizzard on whether the company plans to voluntarily recognize the union. If the company chooses not to, quality assurance workers will go to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a vote. Part of this process – apart from voluntary recognition – means that the NLRB will decide whether a group of workers can be classified as a union.
A Raven Software QA employee told Polygon that the group is still trying to figure out how this impacts unionization at the company.
Update (January 25): Activision Blizzard announced Tuesday that it will not voluntarily recognize Raven Software’s union. The company’s full statement is as follows:

At Activision Blizzard, we deeply respect the right of all employees to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union. We carefully reviewed and considered the CWA’s initial request last week and tried to find a mutually agreeable solution with the CWA that would have led to an expedited election process. Unfortunately, the parties could not reach an agreement.
We expect the union to move forward with filing a petition to the NLRB for an election. If filed, the company will formally respond to this request promptly. The most important thing for the company is that every eligible employee has the opportunity to have their voice heard and their individual vote counted, and we believe that all Raven employees should have a say in this decision.
Across the company, we believe that a direct relationship between managers and team members allows us to respond quickly and deliver the best results and opportunities to employees. Through these direct relationships, we’ve made a number of changes over the past two years, including increasing minimum pay for Raven QA employees by 41%, extending paid time off, expanding access to medical benefits for employees and their loved ones, and the transition of more than 60% of Raven QA’s temporary staff to full-time employees. We look forward to continuing a direct dialogue with our team and working together to improve our workplace.

The company has not released a statement regarding the impact the reorganization may have on organizing efforts.

#Activision #Blizzard #reorganize #Raven #workers #union #efforts