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Xbox to recognise Raven Software union

Xbox to recognise Raven Software union

Tech and games giant Microsoft will voluntarily recognise the newly-formed union at Activision Blizzard's Raven Software.

As reported by Kotaku, the head of Xbox boss Phil Spencer (pictured) said that it would "support" a workers union once the Big M closes its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Right now, the exec said that Microsoft has a relationship with neither the Communication Workers of America or the Game Workers Alliance union at Raven.

“Linda Norman [Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel] and I have been spending a lot of time educating myself on unions.” Spencer said. “We absolutely support employees’ right to organize and form unions.”

He continued: “Once the deal closes, we would absolutely support [an] employees’ organization that’s in place. We think it is a right of employees and something that can be a part of a relationship between a company and people who work at the company.”

This is a seemingly consistent position with Microsoft; in March of this year, the company's general counsel Lisa Tanzi said that it would not oppose a union at Activision Blizzard

The Game Workers Alliance union was voted into existence in a 19-3 vote at Raven Software's QA department.

In January of this year, Microsoft announced it planned to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The deal is currently being investigated by the FTC.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.