Activision Blizzard has announced that roughly 1,100 temporary quality assurance (QA) employees in the U.S. would be transitioned to full-time employees. In addition, the video game company is raising the minimum hourly salary for the said QA employees to $20 per hour.
Workers went on strike and raised numerous complaints and other labor issues last year, prompting the introduction of these measures. Another thing to consider is Activision Blizzard's growing unionization which began with the ABetterABK Workers Alliance, a workers' collective that has organized various walkouts across the company in favor of better working conditions.
Activision Blizzard Converts 1,100 QA to Full-Time Employees
Activision Publishing and Blizzard Entertainment, both subsidiaries of parent company Activision Blizzard, separately announced on Thursday, April 7, that almost 1,100 of its temporary and contingent QA positions in the U.S. will be converted to full-time positions. This comes with the raising of the minimum hourly salary for QA roles to $20 per hour.
The 1,100 new full-time employmees will add to the 500 new full-time positions converted last year, Polygon reported.
The conversion of all U.S.-based QA workers to full-time employment has expanded Activision Publishing's whole full-time staff by 25%.
When workload increases and surpasses the team's bandwidth, an Activision Blizzard spokeswoman said that both Activision Publishing and Blizzard Entertainment will continue to use "external partner support" for QA workers.
According to Gamespot, conversions to full-time status will begin on July 1, with a salary rise to a minimum of $20 per hour beginning on April 17. Furthermore, Activision stated that temporary to full-time employees will be eligible for "full" company perks as well as the company's bonus scheme.
After the Activision Blizzard announcement was published, Bloomberg News revealed that Raven Software QA employees would not receive the same raises. In a statement to Polygon, Activision Blizzard verified this: "Due to our legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act, we cannot institute new pay initiatives at Raven at this time, because they would be new kinds of compensation changes."
The Activision Blizzard spokeswoman further stated that the QA conversion had nothing to do with the petition now pending at Raven studio. "The Raven situation is limited to Raven."
What Is the Reason Behind This Announcement?
It was said that the conversion of 1,100 QA to full-time employees comes on the heels of growing unionization across Activision Blizzard which began with the ABetterABK Workers Alliance, a workers' collective that has coordinated different walkouts across Activision Blizzard in support of better working conditions. Blizzard's first union was formed by Raven QA staff earlier this year.
According to Gamespot, Microsoft is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard, although it is assumed that the tech giant will have no influence on these things until the acquisition concludes in 2023.
As part of its investigation into Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is apparently looking into the latter's labor woes. It's unclear whether these newly announced changes are in reaction to the FTC's investigation, Gamespot noted.
