Nearly 400 workers within Activision Blizzard‘s Platform & Technology department have voted to form a union with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), representing the company’s latest expansion of organised labour.
The newly organised units include the engineers, designers and support staff who maintain Battle.net — the platform powering esports competitions for Overwatch 2, Hearthstone and StarCraft II. Workers voted either through union authorisation cards or an online portal, with representation split between CWA Local 9510 in Irvine, California and CWA Local 6215 in Austin, Texas.
Battle.net serves as the critical infrastructure for Blizzard’s esports ecosystem, managing online services, tournament systems, in-game purchases and account management that millions of competitive players rely on daily.
Microsoft has recognised both unions, with the vote occurring just before the expiration of the labour neutrality agreement between Microsoft and CWA this week. The agreement, signed in 2022 during Microsoft’s $68.7bn (~£52.7bn) acquisition of Activision Blizzard, streamlined the unionisation process for game workers at the company.
Daniel Weltz, Principal Software Engineer and organising committee member, highlighted retention concerns driving the unionisation effort: “I’ve been at Blizzard for nearly 20 years, and I’ve seen so many incredible colleagues in the industry come and go for preventable reasons — either for better compensation or as a result of layoffs.
“Our culture is our people, and we can’t afford to lose that.”
Ever More Changes for Microsoft
The move follows significant workforce reductions at Microsoft’s gaming division, including 1,900 positions eliminated in January. Alex Kohn, Senior Data Scientist and organising committee member, referenced these cuts directly: “After seeing so many hard-working, passionate coworkers laid off, we are excited to have greater control over our workplace to minimise the suffering caused by future layoffs in the industry.”
This is not the first unionisation amongst the company’s workforce, with several divisions having done so previously, including the Diablo team less than two months ago.
Jason Justice, President of CWA Local 9510, commented on the broader implications: “With each new Blizzard unit organising, California continues to become the proving ground for tech and video game power.
“Workers here are redefining what it means to work in entertainment — moving from passion alone to power through solidarity.”
Job security emerged as a recurring theme among organizers. Timothy Biley, Senior Quality Analyst and organizing committee member, cited multiple factors behind the push. He explained that ‘talented coworkers’ have left the company due to layoffs, unfair compensation and unmet accommodations.
The successful vote coincides with the announcement of United Videogame Workers-CWA (UVW-CWA), an industry-spanning union designed to build power across the gaming sector regardless of employer or employment status.
