In a statement released today, Activison Blizzard employees announced plans to stop work from 10am to 2pm on Wednesday in protest against working conditions at the company. The announcement comes after the State Of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for alleged harassment and discrimination within the workplace, and after an open letter signed by over 2600 employees was released yesterday which condemned the “abhorrent” corporate response to the allegations.
Today’s walkout announcement includes a list of demands that the employees feel would “improve conditions for employees at the company, especially women, and in particular women of color and transgender women, nonbinary people, and other marginalized groups.”
As published by Blizzard Watch, the employees request that Activision Blizzard executive leadership “work with us on the following demands”:
- An end to mandatory arbitration clauses in all employee contracts, current and future. Arbitration clauses protect abusers and limit the ability of victims to seek restitution.
- The adoption of recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and promotion policies designed to improve representation among employees at all levels, agreed upon by employees in a company-wide Diversity, Equity & Inclusion organization. Current practices have led to women, in particular women of color and transgender women, nonbinary people, and other marginalized groups that are vulnerable to gender discrimination not being hired fairly for new roles when compared to men.
- Publication of data on relative compensation (including equity grants and profit sharing), promotion rates, and salary ranges for employees of all genders and ethnicities at the company. Current practices have led to aforementioned groups not being paid or promoted fairly.
- Empower a company-wide Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion task force to hire a third party to audit ABK’s reporting structure, HR department, and executive staff. It is imperative to identify how current systems have failed to prevent employee harassment, and to propose new solutions to address these issues.
The statement asks employees to gather in front of the Blizzard Campus from 10am until 2pm PDT on Wednesday, July 28th, and asks anyone not able to attend physically to use the #ActiBlizzWalkout hashtag. The hashtag already features several current and former Blizzard employees expressing support for the walkout.
The organisers also asked that supporters of the walkout to donate to one of the following charities: