The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found that Activision Blizzard withheld raises for Raven Software's quality assurance staff because they were engaged in union organizing activities, the Washington Post reports (opens in new tab).

Activision Blizzard's non-raven QA staff was offered a series of improved working conditions in April of this year (opens in new tab). The QA contract employees, consisting of approximately 1,100 people, became permanent employees and received full company benefits, and their hourly wage was increased to $20 per hour. However, the Raven staff was not included in this drastic upgrade, which the NLRB now views as retaliation for their union organizing activities.

This finding was made in the midst of union contract negotiations (open in new tab) between Activision and Raven's QA testers. Raven's QA staff voted 19-3 to form a union (open in new tab) in May of this year, becoming the first major North American game developer to form a union in the process. Although initially opposed, Activision reversed course and opted instead to approve and negotiate with Raven's staff.

A spokesperson for Activision told the Post that it was this very vote that stopped the pay raise to the employees involved. Activision is "legally obligated [......] not to grant any wage increases while the election is taking place. and that the company could not present a new pay initiative at Raven "because it would be an entirely new kind of compensation change that would have been prohibited prior to the union vote."

In the short term, the NLRB's findings will add to the arsenal of Raven's negotiators. Former NLRB chair Wilma Liebman told the Post that the NLRB's findings are a "very preliminary victory" for the QA staff and can be used in a back-and-forth battle with Activision.

In the long run, he told the Post, Activision will defend against the findings in the NLRB litigation process and, if necessary, in the appeals court.

This, of course, is happening in the context of Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a deal worth a whopping $68 billion (open in new tab) and under strict regulatory scrutiny from various countries (part of their unwillingness to enter the game Aside from Saudi Arabia, which has rushed to approve it (opens in new tab)). Activision Blizzard's corporate culture and significant past failures (opens in new tab) have been in the spotlight as part of this, and it says something that its past actions have once again attracted such legal attention from government agencies.