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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 Forbes-Calvin is a freelance writer and photographer, mostly operating within the games industry. Over his career, he has written for the likes of MCV, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, The Observer, VGC and Esquire. That's on top of writing books for Dark Horse on RuneScape, Assassin's Creed, Dead Island 2 and more.