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Activison Blizzard employees are holding a walkout on Wednesday, July 28 in response to the company’s handling of sexual harassment allegations made by the state of California. Employees will meet outside of Blizzard’s main campus in Irvine at 10:00 a.m. PST. “We believe that our values as employees are not accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leaders,” the organizers said in a statement.
The news comes after California sued the famous game studio and its publisher, claiming women face constant sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. An employee is said to have died by suicide after circulating nude photos of herself in the office. In the wake of the lawsuit, many employees took to Twitter to detail other examples of harassment and discrimination. Former Blizzard Chairman Mike Morhaime also issued a statement saying “I am extremely sorry to have disappointed you.”
The company denied the allegations, saying the lawsuit was “irresponsible behavior on the part of irresponsible state bureaucrats who are hunting many of the best companies in the state of California.”
More than 2,600 employees signed a letter slamming the company’s response.
Now, employees are presenting four demands in connection with the walkout:
- The end of forced arbitration clauses in all employee contracts, a change that Google employees fought for successfully in 2019.
- New hiring and promotion processes to increase representation across the company. Employees say that “current practices have resulted in women, especially women of color and transgender women, non-binary people and other marginalized groups vulnerable to gender discrimination, not being hired. fairly for new roles in relation to men ”.
- The publication of data on salaries and promotions “for employees of all genders and ethnicities in the company”.
- Allow a diversity, equity and inclusion task force to hire a third-party organization to audit executive staff. “It is imperative to identify how current systems have failed to prevent employee harassment and come up with new solutions to address these issues,” say employees.
Employees who cannot attend the walkout in person are encouraged to use the hashtag #ActiBlizzWalkout to provide online support.
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