Activision Blizzard workers have once again staged a walkout following today’s bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal that accused CEO Bobby Kotick of not only knowing about his company’s toxic work culture but even contributing to it by defending known offenders and harassing female employees.
The lengthy report details a long history of sexual harassment, inequitable pay, and toxicity within Activision Blizzard, but the worst may have come from CEO Bobby Kotick himself. Kotick allegedly halted the termination of an executive accused of sexual harassment, threatened to kill a former staffer he himself harassed and fired a flight attendant after the pilot of his private plane assaulted her. Those last two resulted in quick and quiet out-of-court settlements, while reports of harassment from other employees made their way to Kotick's desk but never to Activision's board of directors.
This might be the final straw for angry Activision Blizzard workers upset at the slow progress the company has made following the original DFEH lawsuit that started everything. ABetterABK, a workers alliance advocating for better work conditions at Activision Blizzard, announced a surprise walkout following the WSJ report.
"We have instituted our own Zero Tolerance Policy,” wrote ABetterABK on Twitter. “We will not be silenced until Bobby Kotick has been replaced as CEO, and continue to hold our original demand for Third-Party review by an employee-chosen source. We are staging a Walkout today. We welcome you to join us."
This is the second time Activision Blizzard workers have walked out in protest. The first time was earlier this summer after Kotick and Activision management played down reports of rampant sexual harassment in a lawsuit brought by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. As part of the walkout, workers demanded better work conditions, a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual harassment, an end to forced arbitration in cases of harassment, more equal pay, better representation in the workforce, and a third-party review of Activision Blizzard’s pay policies.
Activision Blizzard only recently instituted some of these demands but stopped short of allowing third-party review of pay policies.