Blizzard Entertainment Workers Ratify First Contracts After Two Years of Negotiations
Blizzard Entertainment workers behind titles including World of Warcraft and Diablo have ratified their first union contracts following two years of negotiations.
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The contracts, ratified on Tuesday night, cover roughly 1,900 workers who work at Blizzard’s games and shared services divisions, including those assigned to the titles World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble, Overwatch and Diablo and on the quality assurance, platform and technology and story and franchise development teams.
The deals include language covering wage increases, grievance procedures and “just cause” disciplinary protections, according to the union the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which represents the Blizzard Entertainment workers in bargaining.
The deals also enshrine a three-day in-office work week, offer those who have been laid off the option to be “recalled” to an open role within a period of 14 months after their exit announcement and include an additional four weeks of severance. The deals additionally necessitate bargaining over the use of AI in the workplace.
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The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Blizzard Entertainment for comment.
“I’ve been at Blizzard for 20 years because I love this company and the amazing people I work with. This contract secures a lot of what people already love about working here while adding strong protections around layoffs, job security, and remote work,” said principal software engineer Daniel Weltz, who is also a bargaining committee member, in a statement. “Blizzard helped shape the gaming industry, and I’m proud that this contract allows us to continue setting new standards for this work.”
In July, Microsoft — which also owns Blizzard Entertainment — said that it would cut 3,200 roles at Xbox in a major restructure of the brand. That news motivated workers to make layoffs a key issue during negotiations, according to the CWA.
Quality analyst Simon Hedrick, a bargaining committee member, called his workplace contract “the beginning of a new era at Blizzard Entertainment” in a statement. Hedrick added, “I look forward to the day that everyone in the industry can enjoy the protections that this contract affords us, like increased severance and recall rights in the event of a layoff and the ability to grieve injustices in the workplace.”
