Activision Workers Forming a Union | Hacker News Reader

Activision Workers Forming a Union

nytimes.com

33 pointsakoster12 comments

They aren’t developers. They are a small group of QA who are making outrageous demands. For example, striking indefinitely due to a few people not getting their temporary contract renewed. Granted, they moved across the country for the contract which sucks. But hey, maybe don’t be QA in a predatory gaming industry. You could make more money and probably be more respected by management working anywhere else.

Why leave when you can improve where you work with federally protected organizing activities? And in a tight labor market, workers have the upper hand. Pay no mind to those who (for whatever reason) would dissuade these activities proven to improve wages and worker bargaining power. If you were going to leave anyway, you have nothing to lose by making the attempt, especially when the current executive branch admin looks favorably on organizational efforts.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/354455/approval-labor-unions-hi... (Gallup: Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965)

https://www.epi.org/press/union-workers-are-paid-11-2-more-a... (Union workers are paid 11.2% more and have greater access to health insurance and paid sick days than their nonunion counterparts)

> For example, striking indefinitely due to a few people not getting their temporary contract renewed. Granted, they moved across the country for the contract which sucks. But hey, maybe don’t be QA in a predatory gaming industry.

That's... I mean, you're admitting they're getting screwed over, but implying they're wrong to be upset about it or doing something about it other than giving up and looking for other work?

That seems like a very pro-management, anti-worker stance.

I mean a temporary contract is temporary and ends, right? If somebody said “hey move across the country for this temporary contract” shouldn’t one do their own due diligence? Why would you move across the country for a temp contract? And then get mad when it ends. Makes no sense.

Large companies often end up with middle managers saying bullshit about "oh, that's just how we do our payroll, etc etc" in order to keep people ambiguous about how secure and long-term their role actually may be.

You sound like Scrooge McDuck.

Prediction: Former Activision workers attempted to form a union, but were quickly replaced with a more productive workforce

The gamedev labor market is way too competitive with way too many competent professionals chomping at the bit to work for a big name company for this to result in anything but turnover in my estimation.

In addition to federal law that dictates such actions, the Microsoft merger still has to get past regulators. Not a good look if you're firing workers who are trying to unionize, and though IANAL, it seems rife with legal landmines to step on. Regardless, it will be interesting to watch how it turns out.

I have heard both the market is competitive but also the talent pool has to be somewhat slimmer than the general software market as a whole. I knew of someone who worked at Blizzard for maybe 2 years IIRC, claiming he felt it wasn't a great fit as he was not passionate about games. I imagine the game dev industry would generally select a candidate who is passionate about gaming (and preferably their products) over someone with similar skills but without that passion (which would possibly narrow the labor market somewhat?)

Raven Software, developers in part of the latest CoD games.

I think a small part of the unfairness in the gaming industry comes from exploiting desperate workers. To think how much gaming means to these people, how long they’ve been immersed.

It’s well known that it doesn’t pay to be a developer. I don’t doubt there will always be enough passionate employees to do any type of menial grunt work as long as it somehow involves Mario.

Without a paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20220121171619/https://www.nytim...

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