Battle.net Workers Unionize As Microsoft Neutrality Agreement Expires

Workers on Blizzard’s Battle.net platform have voted to unionize under the Communications Workers of America. The nearly 400 workers under Blizzard Entertainment’s Platform and Technology department have created two new unions: one for software engineers, product and project managers, designers, and others; and a second for localization, quality assurance, and customer support.

The unit made up of Battle.net’s tech workers has roughly 300 members, and the localization, QA, and customer support unit has around 80 members. The decision to split the unit into two instead of a single union was “mutually agreed” to by both Microsoft and CWA, according to a CWA spokesperson.

Microsoft has recognized the units after workers voted by signing union authorization cards and voting through an …

Microsoft has recognized the units after workers voted by signing union authorization cards and voting through an online portal. The Platform and Technology workers squeezed in their vote ahead of the expiration of Microsoft and CWA’s neutrality agreement this week, which was signed in 2022 when Microsoft was looking to finalize its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The neutrality agreement gave game workers at the company a more streamlined process for unionizing and meant that the voting units under Microsoft did not have to go through the National Labor Relations Board’s process, making things quicker.

Unions existed under Activision Blizzard before the neutrality agreement, like at Blizzard Albany, but a bunch more have formed since its signing. The teams that work on World of Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, story and franchise development, and quality assurance all unionized into separate units. The neutrality agreement did not mean Microsoft or Activision Blizzard supported unions, but that they didn’t interfere in their formation. It’s not immediately clear how unionization efforts will fare without such an agreement, or if a new agreement will be signed.

Daniel Weltz, a principal software engineer who’s worked at Blizzard for almost 20 years, told Aftermath that seeing the World of Warcraft team unionize was a turning point for him. “Even just the fact that *World of Warcraft *organized first, the biggest and most profitable team, gave a big push that made us think, ‘we could do this too,’” he said.

The Platform and Technology department unions had the support of the other Microsoft and Activision Blizzard unions behind them, too. Blizzard senior software engineer Chris Myles, who’s been at the company for 18 years, said several of the organizing committees across the company met to “compare notes” and “share what worked and what didn’t.” He continued, “We also had an organizing committee summit to get together to discuss where we are and where we’re going.”

From here, the Platform and Technology unions will negotiate with Microsoft and Activision Blizzard on their first contracts. Just two unions under Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have completed negotiations: Raven Software, which announced its QA union in 2022, ratified a contract in August, while ZeniMax Media QA workers, who unionized in 2023, reached a tentative contract agreement in May. Both had been in negotiations for years.

Alex Kohn, a senior data scientist at Blizzard Entertainment, said he’s looking to negotiate for “policies regarding layoffs and [return-to-office.]” Myles added that watching his long term colleagues get pushed out of Blizzard because of return-to-office policies is what moved him to get involved in the union. He said that “more equitable treatment of QA and [customer service]” is a priority, too. “The industry always treats the majority of QA and CS like they’re a separate entity, when in fact, we work very closely with them and we can’t really do our jobs without them,” he said.

Aftermath has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

“We’re past having to wonder what happens if we don’t succeed,” Myles said. “I got that question from multiple people—what happens if we don’t get the results that we want? Do we take another swing at it or do we give up? We don’t have to confront those questions anymore.”