With only about two weeks to go before the Blizzard Albany QA team unionization vote is finally counted, Activision Blizzard has intervened to delay it, GamesIndustry.biz (opens in new tab) reports, Activision has asked the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to delay counting the votes until Activision's appeal of the NLRB's earlier decision is considered.

The appeal in question concerns the NLRB's decision that Blizzard Albany's QA team may conduct its own union vote (opens in new tab). Activision argued that the vote should be conducted by the entire studio, not just within the QA staff, but the NLRB rejected the company's argument. Activision is now asking the NLRB to reconsider this decision and to postpone counting the QA team's votes in the meantime.

In essence, Activision's argument all along was that the QA team was too small to be an independent bargaining unit within the company and that the vote should instead proceed along studio-wide lines The NLRB's response in October was that QA testers are paid considerably lower, about $42,000 versus a range of $56,000 to $175,000, and that they are a distinct group. As labor experts point out (opens in new tab), expanding the voting pool in this way could have the effect of diminishing the overall enthusiasm of eligible employees for unionization. This is a favorable side effect for companies seeking to discourage unionization.

Activision says that proceeding with the tally could have a negative impact on a later studio-wide vote that would have taken place if the NLRB had accepted the complaint. An Activision spokesperson told GI that the company "deeply respects" the right of its employees to form a union, but that it "strongly believes that each of the 107 eligible employees," not just the QA staff, "deserve to have their votes counted.

The response from the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the union to which Blizzard Albany employees belong, was fierce; in a separate statement to the GI, the CWA said, "A company that has repeatedly tried to silence its employees by hiding reports of sexual violence . is not surprised that it is once again trying to silence workers' voices."

The CWA statement went on to say that Activision executives "feel threatened" by the national unionization movement and that the CWA is "confident in the NLRB's response to these frivolous demands."

It is unclear when the NLRB will respond to Activision's complaint, but it will have to respond soon. The tally is due on November 18, so there is no room for anyone to maneuver at this point; whatever the NLRB's decisions to date, the union may have the upper hand here; the NLRB has already said once that the QA team falls under the bargaining unit, and in October, Activision "retaliated" The NLRB found that the union withheld raises for unionized staff as a "retaliatory action. (Open in new tab) Activision's last-minute appeal has the feel of a Hail Mary.