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Hundreds of current Activision Blizzard employees have signed a letter to the company’s management calling for its response to a recent lawsuit alleging widespread sexual harassment and discrimination in some of its offices “heinous and insulting.”
“Following Activision Blizzard’s announcement, and in light of the internal memo released by Frances Townsend, a group of over 800 employees across Activision-Blizzard-King and its affiliates came together to take action, ”said a representative of the group. Recount Kotaku. “Over the weekend, we wrote an open letter to our leaders which is now collecting signatures from all of our organizations and we have been working on the next steps. “
This letter was sent to managers today, two sources confirmed, a full copy of which was shared with Kotaku and is excerpted below:
To the leaders of Activision Blizzard,
We, the undersigned, agree that the statements of Activision Blizzard, Inc. and their legal advisers regarding the DFEH lawsuit, as well as the subsequent internal statement by Frances Townsend, are heinous and insulting to all that we believe our company should stand for. . To put it plainly and unequivocally, our values as employees are not accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leaders.
We believe these statements have hampered our continued pursuit of equality inside and outside our industry. Categorizing claims that have been made as “distorted and in many cases false” creates a corporate atmosphere that victims do not believe. It also casts doubt on the ability of our organizations to hold perpetrators accountable and foster a safe environment for victims to come forward in the future. These statements make it clear that our leadership does not put our values first. Immediate corrections are needed at the highest level of our organization.
Our company executives have said action will be taken to protect us, but in the face of lawsuits – and the troubling official responses that followed – we no longer believe our leaders will place employee safety above their own interests. . To claim that this is a “truly baseless and irresponsible trial” while seeing so many current and former employees speak out about their own experiences with harassment and abuse is simply unacceptable.
We call for official statements recognizing the seriousness of these allegations and showing compassion to victims of harassment and assault. We call on Frances Townsend to keep her word to step down as executive sponsor of ABK’s Women Employees Network due to the prejudicial nature of her statement. We call on the leadership team to work with us on meaningful new efforts that ensure employees – as well as our community – have a safe place to speak out and come forward.
We support all of our friends, teammates and colleagues, as well as members of our dedicated community, who have experienced abuse or harassment of any kind. We won’t be silenced, we won’t stay on the sidelines, and we won’t give up until the company we love is a place to work we can all be proud to be a part of again. We will be the change.
On July 20, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard accusing the Call of Duty and Monitoring editor of a “frat boy” work culture based on a two-year survey. In response. “DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past,” Activision Blizzard said in a response, calling it the work of “irresponsible state bureaucrats.”
In the days that followed, company executives offered their own answers. Some have called the allegations of the complaint “disturbing”, others, like Frances Townsend, Activision Blizzard’s chief compliance officer, called the lawsuit “without merit” in a strong reprimand sent to Activision staff. A number of current Blizzard developers that started talking online to distance himself of the company’s official response and criticize the way management was handling the situation.
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Today, UppercutWrite reported that Activision’s COO, Joshua Taub, held a controversial meeting with 500 employees to discuss the company’s handling of the ongoing fallout. In it, he apparently encouraged employees to let the handling of such matters remain internal, including when it came to a question on unionization of staff. “The best way to protect yourself is to contact your supervisors, your hotline and your avenues,” Taub replied, according to UppercutCrit.
Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We appreciate the support of our co-workers, former ABK employees and our communities during this time,” said a representative of the employee group who signed the letter today. Kotaku. “Rest assured that we intend to demand change and to hold our leaders and our companies accountable for the values to which we subscribed when we joined.”
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