gaming
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Activision Blizzard has fired 20 people during harassment investigation

The gaming company says its investigation is still ongoing and that more changes will likely come, according to a Financial Times report.

Activision Blizzard logo

Activision Blizzard says it has fired 20 employees and reprimanded 20 more because of its investigation into harassment and discrimination.

Photo: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Activision Blizzard has fired 20 individuals and reprimanded or punished 20 more in the course of its investigation into allegations of discrimination, harassment and sexism within the company, according to a Financial Times report.

None of those fired or punished were C-suite or director-level employees, Frances Townsend, the chief compliance officer at the gaming company, told the Financial Times. The company announced the firings, as well as a large expansion of its ethics team, in an all-staff memo filed Tuesday. Townsend also said that while the company has yet to meet the demands of organizing workers, who have asked for an end to mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts and a company-wide commitment gender pay equity, she has been given a "blank check" to make changes as she sees fits.

Activision Blizzard is facing a sweeping investigation and lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing into the allegations of gender-based discrimination, and the company also recently settled an investigation from the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission into the same complaints. Activision Blizzard is now asking for a pause in the DFEH suit because the EEOC and DFEH have been publicly fighting over the nature of the dueling suits and settlements, accusing each other of ethical violations. The company appears to be taking advantage of the conflict to try to bring an end to the DFEH process.

Some workers at Activision Blizzard are instead protesting the EEOC settlement and appear to be pinning their hopes on the DFEH, accusing the current agreement of being too weak to cause real change or represent the harms that have been caused by the company.

The company is also facing charges from the Communication Workers of America union in front of the National Labor Relations Board, which allege that Activision Blizzard has tried to quash union organizing efforts protected under national labor laws in the wake of the allegations and lawsuits.

Representatives from the company did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Anna Kramer

Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (Twitter: @ anna_c_kramer, email: akramer@protocol.com), where she writes about labor and workplace issues. Prior to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the Middle East.

activision blizzardworkersunionizationdiscriminationgaming
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