Raven Software's striking QA workers have filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board after Activision Blizzard's ignored their request to be recognized as a union. As reported by the Washington Post, Activision Blizzard was given a deadline of 6 pm EST on January 25 to formally recognize the recently formed Game Workers Alliance (GWA) as a union, a deadline which has now passed with no word from the publisher.
As a result, GWA is now attempting to formalize the union without the recognition of Activision Blizzard via the NLRB, something which the group can do due to Raven Software's QA department having a supermajority. By winning a 50 percent +1 majority, the vote will force Activision Blizzard to the table in order to discuss working conditions as well as GWA's other demands which can be found on the Game Workers Alliance Twitter account.
In a statement from Activision Blizzard following GWA's petition to the NLRB - shared by Polygon reporter Nicole Carpenter - the publisher claimed that it attempted to "find a mutually acceptable solution" with Raven Software's union to "expedite the election", but couldn't reach an agreement.
In case you're unfamiliar with the situation at Raven Software, the QA department went on strike in early December due to a round of layoffs which saw 12 contractors lose their jobs. The move was found particularly egregious due to it being revealed at the time that Call of Duty Warzone had made $1.9 billion in earnings. Five weeks later, the strike ended on the condition that Activision Blizzard formally recognized the newly formed union.
It now looks like GWA's union is going to happen whether Activision Blizzard likes it or not. Since Raven Software's QA department has such a massive majority, it's pretty much guaranteed that the election vote via the NLRB will go pretty smoothly. Hopefully, this new union will be able to improve working conditions for not only Raven Software, but Activision Blizzard employees as a whole.