The QA specialists' union at Raven studio has succeeded in securing a contract with Microsoft after three years of negotiations
Employees of the Raven studio, a subsidiary of Microsoft, have voted to ratify a contract between their union and Microsoft itself.
According to the approved document, union members are entitled to:
- a guaranteed 10% salary increase over two years and additional merit and promotion bonuses after 18 months without a salary increase and 45 months without advancement;
- elimination of crunch time, which includes mandatory advance notifications of overtime, a ban on working overtime two consecutive weeks, flexible scheduling for overtime, and no overtime hours in the majority of weeks per quarter;
- credit for time worked as a temporary/contract employee;
- clearly defined job responsibilities;
- a fair promotion process;
- layoff guarantees, which include severance pay, insurance, and assistance with job search and transition.
Raven's QA specialists formed their union—Game Workers Alliance-CWA (GWA-CWA)—in January 2022. It was the first employee union at what was then still Activision Blizzard. This move was in response to the layoff of one-third of the studio's QA staff, which was involved with Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War at the time.