Raven Software gets its union contract with Microsoft three years after voting to organize

Employees at Raven Software, known for its work on the Call of Duty franchise, finally have a union contract with Microsoft. This happened nearly years after quality assurance (QA) workers at the company voted to unionize.

Workers voted unanimously to ratify the first contract between the company’s Game Workers Alliance-CWA (GWA-CWA) members and Microsoft. This contract includes a guaranteed 10-percent wage increase over two years, along with additional raises through “merit and promotions.”

It also eliminates crunch time, with a requirement to give employees seven days’ notice for mandatory overtime. There will be no excessive overtime on back-to-back weeks and “no mandatory overtime of any duration for the majority of weeks in a quarter.”

The contract also mandates a “fair promotions process” along with expanded disability accommodations. Finally, there are a spate of layoff protections, including severance, recall rights, COBRA subsidies and career transition services.

As previously stated, these workers voted to unionize three years ago. At the time, it was the first union at Activision Blizzard or any major US publisher. This was before Microsoft scooped up Activision.

The past three years have been fraught for Raven’s QA workers. An investigation found that Activision had been withholding raises from unionizing workers and the company’s top brass were accused of “bad faith bargaining.” Workers at ZeniMax, another company owned by Microsoft, secured a contract in June.