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Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Says He Will Recognize Raven Software's Union

His comments come on the heels of Raven's union being formed earlier this week.

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Head of Xbox Phil Spencer stated today in an all-hands meeting that he would recognize Raven Software's union pending Xbox's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, according to Kotaku.

During the meeting, Spencer told his employees, "Once the deal closes, we would absolutely support [an] employees’ organization that’s in place." Kotaku was able to verify the events of the meeting with a video recording that was provided.

"We think it is a right of employees and something that can be a part of a relationship between a company and people who work at the company," Spencer stated.

This affirmation from Spencer comes days after Raven Software formed the first union at a major studio in a 19-3 vote. Spencer, who has in the past admitted that he wouldn't obstruct unionization efforts and claimed to have little experience with unions, told attendees today that he has been educating himself about them.

Despite the announcement and gesture, Spencer reportedly stressed that Microsoft does not currently have a relationship with either the Communication Workers of America or the Game Workers Alliance, Raven Software's newly formed union.

Xbox's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is still being investigated, but in the meantime the lawsuits against the publisher have only persisted since it initially made headlines last year for fostering a sexist workplace culture. Outside of lawsuits, Activision Blizzard has been mired in controversy, including the removal of a vaccination mandate for in-office workers that prompted a walkout months ago and repeatedly impeding Raven Software's unionization efforts since the studio's QA department first walked out last year.

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Dave1927p

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Edited By Dave1927p

the issue is it's not uncommon for 1 employee to unionize a company. If all the employees vote than it's a different story, but both sides should state their cases. The unions lie and cheat to get companies unionized and hire their own "salts".

This will no doubt be the end of this company...they'll likely work on some low quality throw away games for a few years and eventually be shut down if they become unionized.

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Thanatos2k

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Thanatos2k

So Phil, gonna let your other devs unionize? Uh, Phil, where are you going??

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Batman90

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Batman90

Unions are going to destroy the gaming industry. Bad news for us gamers cause now it will take forever to finish a game.

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SonicDC

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SonicDC

@batman90: Yes it will really suck for us gamers if games are delayed so employees can have fair and reasonable working conditions. How can they be so selfish?

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TheVaultman

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Edited By TheVaultman

@SonicDC: I understand and want all employees to have a full time job offering with guaranteed 40 hours a week with the option of if they do overtime that they are "properly" compensated for it. This whole "well they're salaried so we dont need to pay overtime" schtick needs to go and we shouldnt need a union for companies to do this because long term while a union would fix that issue there are other long term complacency issues that would arise from being in a union that I dont think anyone would want once they see the long term effects.

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Cydie

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Edited By Cydie

@SonicDC: What you don't understand is these employee where getting premium because they where expected to work long hours for extended period of time because of companies it wasn't worth it to hire 3 people to do the same job as there would be loss of productivity and make it harder to meet release timeline.

So what going to happen, all new hire will end up doing same jobs than current employees at 1/3rd of the current pay, and those right now will either get weeded out or ask to take a severe pay cut. They can't afford to pay them the same price if they have to hire 2 more people to do what 1 person use to do.

I know this is going to happen, it occurred in a place i used to work when the IT group decided to get a union. Developer don't tend to want to get in union for that reason, unions are nice and all, but all it's going to do is drive their salary down as now you negotiate with your boss your yearly salary, in a union everyone will get somewhat similar pays for similar experience. So the people that wanted the union will all leave within a year or two, and the union or the company will disappear.

Union are nice and all in low skill cap jobs where union are the one fighting for your pay increase, not for professional job where you tend to fight for your own pay raise.

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Musicsvictim

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@cydie: I don't know what it was like in the industry you worked in, but, from my experience, QA in the games industry are generally paid around minimum wage as a salary. This means that they are expected to pull over time, with no monetary compensation for doing so. At best they'll get the time back as half for staying late or working weekends, at worst they will have a meal comped for them. There is no doubt in my mind that the group that decided to unionize were not "getting premium" for the work they were doing.

QA tend to be treated as an expendable resource by larger games companies, with many being forced to burn out and then being replaced without a second thought. QA unionizing will lead to better conditions for their departments, which will lead to individuals remaining at the same company longer, which will lead to knowledge being retained and, hopefully, less buggy games on release. I personally can only see this as a win for both QA and consumers.

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