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Only a few days before BlizzCon 2026, a group of nearly 1,900 workers (a coincidentally significant number for the company) at Blizzard Entertainment have voted to ratify their first union contracts with Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard.
New agreements cover union-represented employees across mega-franchises and games including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble, Overwatch, and Diablo, as well as Blizzard’s quality assurance, platform and technology, and story and franchise development divisions. According to the Communications Workers of America, the contracts were reached after two years of bargaining and established common terms across Blizzard’s game teams and shared services.
The deals include wage increases, grievance procedures, “just cause” employment protections, remote-work and disability accommodations, and a three-day in-office hybrid schedule. They also require Blizzard to discuss, evaluate, and bargain with the union over the workplace use of artificial intelligence.
According to Platform & Technology bargaining committee member and Principal Software Engineer Daniel Weltz:
This contract secures a lot of what people already love about working here while adding strong protections around layoffs, job security, and remote work. Blizzard helped shape the gaming industry, and I’m proud that this contract allows us to continue setting new standards for this work.
Workers affected by layoffs will receive four additional weeks of severance, regardless of tenure. They will also retain recall rights for 14 months, giving them priority consideration for open positions across Blizzard’s bargaining units.
Overwatch quality analyst and bargaining committee member Simon Hedrick said in a release:
This contract marks the beginning of a new era at Blizzard Entertainment, but it doesn’t stop with us. I look forward to the day that everyone in the industry can enjoy the protections that this contract affords us, like increased severance and recall rights in the event of a layoff and the ability to grieve injustices in the workplace.
The ratification follows a time of extensive union organizing across Activision Blizzard, including the formation of a wall-to-wall union at World of Warcraft in 2024.
Pictured at top: BlizzCon 2026 promotional artwork