Activision Blizzard Employees Make A Major Accusation
A few months ago, the California Department of Fair Trade and Housing filed a lawsuit with some serious allegations against Activision Blizzard. According to the case, Activision Blizzard allegedly had an inappropriate and toxic workplace environment that fostered sexual assault and ongoing harassment towards female employees. Shortly after, a staggering number of Activision Blizzard employees protested to demand that the company take the allegations seriously. Now, employees have even more to say about what's going on behind the closed doors at Activision Blizzard.
ABetterABK, which stands for A Better Activision Blizzard King, filed a labor suit against Activision Blizzard alleging that the company is actively coercing employees, for good and bad, and interrogating employees via polling. All of this is in response to employees' attempts to unionize, which isn't something Activision Blizzard wants, according to TheGamer.
Despite the seriousness of the original case, this isn't the first time that the public has heard about Activision Blizzard not responding accordingly — it's already been accused of interfering with the investigation. Those allegations included destroying evidence and tampering with numbers to make the company look better.
While the company has made some changes, such as a surprising decision about leadership, ABetterABK took the stance that the company is actively interfering with employees internally. The outcome of this labor suit could have a big impact on the future of the company.
How this labor suit could help the Activision Blizzard lawsuit
When ABetterABK shared the news about the labor suit on Twitter, it also tweeted out what the potential ramifications of a ruling in the employee's favor could do, writing, "If the NLRB rules in our favor, the ruling will be retroactive and we will set a precedent that no worker in the US can be intimidated out of talking about forced arbitration."
If this sounds a bit too much like legal jargon, don't worry. It basically means that, if ABetterABK "wins," the ruling will show companies that they can't coerce employees into staying silent on issues going on within the company. Forced arbitration means that employees have to talk to companies about internal issues, and employees also lose their right to sue the company. Though the suit is just getting started, that hasn't stopped some from rooting for the ABetterABK team.
Activision Blizzard is already on rough grounds since the initial lawsuit was filed and with the upcoming release of major titles like "Call of Duty: Vanguard," the company is hopefully taking things seriously.