CWA Members at Activision QA Rally for Remote Work Options

 
CWA Local 6215 (left) and CWA Local 7250 (right) members and Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA workers rallied outside Activision buildings in Austin, Texas, and Eden Prairie, Minn.

On the day of Activision’s release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Activision quality assurance workers with CWA Locals 6215, 7250, and 9400 held rallies in Texas, Minnesota, and California outside their respective buildings to demand that Microsoft allow its workforce to work remotely under certain circumstances.

After four years of working from home, Activision’s parent company Microsoft implemented return-to-office mandates for all workers without input from quality assurance employees. When workers requested reasonable accommodations to work from home, Microsoft refused to provide exemptions for workers who disclosed serious medical conditions or recommendations from doctors to work remotely.

“Remote work is more than just a perk. It’s an essential tool for equal access to work,” said Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA Local 6215 member Allen Junge. “When they force our disabled coworkers to continue struggling at the office, they’re emphatically saying that we must rely on other people to take care of an issue that is deeply personal.”

In March 2023, over 600 Activision quality assurance workers joined CWA, making them the largest group of union-represented workers at any U.S. video game studio and the first group to organize under CWA and Microsoft’s labor neutrality agreement.