Blizzard employees will halt work, citing the company’s statements on the lawsuit and an internal email from Activision Blizzard Chief Compliance Officer Frances Townsend, which had called the lawsuit claims “a distorted and untrue picture of our company.” While the workforce is mostly remote during the coronavirus pandemic, at least 50 employees plan to meet at the front of the Blizzard Campus, multiple current employees confirmed to The Washington Post. The walkout will start at 10 a.m. Pacific time, and is estimated to end at 2 p.m.
On Tuesday afternoon, Blizzard leadership told staff via email that they would extend paid time off to all who attended the walkout.
The walkout plans come after more than 2,600 current and former Activision Blizzard employees signed an open letter sent Monday to the company’s leadership. The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, described management’s response to the lawsuit as “abhorrent and insulting to all that we believe our company should stand for.”
The employees are making four specific demands of the executive leadership team, including: the adoption of policies that would improve diversity and representation; transparency around employee compensation by gender and ethnicity; and a third-party audit of the company’s reporting structure, human resources and executive staff. The employees are also seeking to end the inclusion mandatory arbitration clauses in current and future employee contracts. Such clauses send complaints made by employees against the company to a private arbitrator, rather than a lawsuit in a civil court.
“We wanted the demands to be easy to rally behind, with the intent that this process will take months, if not years,” a current employee told The Post, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation. “We want commitments and actions from our leadership to be willing to do the work to implement specific and targeted policies. Part of the work will involve figuring out together, the best solutions for these problems. That cannot be done in the space of a sound bite.”
Activision Blizzard had not responded to a request for comment as of the publication of this article.
An additional estimated 1,000 employees plan to support the protest remotely via social media, using the hashtag #ActiBlizzWalkout, according to the organizers.
Sabrina Brogan, a Blizzard employee, informed the Activision-Blizzard-King Women’s Network on Tuesday that she’s decided to step down as the network’s Europe, Middle East and Africa lead after seeing Townsend’s email. The notice from Brogan was shared with other employees via an internal messaging system and shared with The Post. Townsend is the executive sponsor for the Women’s Network, a post she was asked to resign in Monday’s open letter.
In part, Brogan’s message read: “I am ashamed I am working for this company."
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