Not too long ago, a handful of workers at League of Legends studio Riot Games were attempting to bring the company to court on claims of gender discrimination. Shortly after that, Riot claimed that they would look into making their workplace a better place for its female workers, though in the months since the five separate lawsuits, things appear to not have changed. Over 150 employees walked out in protest, giving speeches about their grievances with Riot's upper management. Specifically, they were striking against forced arbitration, which is a policy that essentially means workers are unable to bring their cases to a jury, and it can even result in their right to sue being waived when it comes to harassment or discrimination issues. Following the protest, Riot Games claims it will allow for new hires to opt out of forced arbitration, though current and former employees will not have that option, as the studio is still concerned with continuing litigation from last year. When asked for their opinion on the walkout, Riot's PR team claimed they respected any worker who took part in the protest, and that there would be no retaliation against those who were speaking at the event. According to the employees, they will continue holding protests in the future, until Riot Games changes their ways to be more accommodating to their workforce.

Source

 

[CTR640]

Gender discrimination??? It's time too.. RIOT!!!!!

Pretty ironic company name.

Anyway, this shit sounds like we still live in stone ages or the middle ages and pretty sad to see shit hasn't changed at all. Just like with skin colors.
Those who are discriminated should stand up and fight against it.

 

[LunaValeheart]

Those workers have my respect.

 

[hippy dave]

I predict a etc.

 

[leon315]

isn't RIOT owned by Tencent? the biggest game company in the world?

 

[PalindromicBreadLoaf]

I was going to make a joke about how the company is called RIOT, and the workers are protesting, but I guess I won’t.

 

[simbin]

Who?

 

[chrisrlink]

and why is forced Arbitration even legal?

 

[ShadowOne333]

Not sure if actual protest, or a clever marketing campaign from the company.

 

[proffk]

This is what I hate. Big bully boy companies that earn millions in profit that think they can treat there workers like dog crap. With no regards to health and wellbing of the employees.

 

[abcdinaz21]

I don't understand why everyone is so against arbitration. If you also sign a contract saying you are willing to arbitrate any suits, I think that should hold.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Is this a bad time to ask who is this company and what games they have made? Cause I'm not familiar with them.

 

[Nyteshade714]

I support this. The games industry as a whole is a terrible place to work because of horrible management practices. Even after study after study has proven that crunch is inefficient and the Results-Oriented Work Environment system produces better, faster results and happier employees, the industry continues to be managed by businessmen who have no idea what they're doing and no respect for their employees.

 

[FAST6191]

I don't understand why everyone is so against arbitration. If you also sign a contract saying you are willing to arbitrate any suits, I think that should hold.

While I am mostly indifferent here to arbitration* it is not always the easiest to do well, and often sees results favour the bigger party. I also don't know the state of things around them -- most of what I have seen in the general in the US usually involves say a retired judge or someone of similar legal nous coming in and conducting things essentially as a court, however I have also see things where people that might struggle to so much as intern at a law firm as a secretary are set to preside over things and fairness ceases to mean all that much (even before questions of neutrality and impartiality arise), people then getting ridden roughshod over if they are not familiar with how the game works** (and coding and contract/employment/similar lawyering don't have the most overlap, if you are some shelf stacker then it gets even worse). When it goes right arbitration is a fantastic system but the checks and balances there are a bit more easily tipped than a lot of more formal courts.
In some ways it is similar to all those agreements we saw a few years back where companies would get people to waive the right to participate in a class action -- class actions are big and scary, one person trying to fund a lawyer and keep their head above water is a far lesser threat.

*even more so here as most of the people here are if not rich then upwardly mobile and highly educated tech workers. Which also makes the rumblings of unions that are occurring at this point all the odder to me but I am waiting for another thread for that (though when I saw this story crop up last night I thought it might be a nice jumping off point).

**for the shelf stacking set then they often find themselves wandering into what they think is a hearing or sit down talk about a grievance, find themselves facing a company lawyer/legal expert (none in their corner of course), an arbiter of dubious impartiality (while they are supposed to be neutral then if you are an arbiter being paid by the parties involved and have several hundred upcoming cases with the company... I am sure you can see how questions arise), have no evidence to present (or at least not formulated well, quality of evidence in general maybe not being as good as normal courts go in for) and walk out having essentially had your arbitration done when you were on the left foot and no further recourse, or further things to now be 100 times harder.

 

[osaka35]

These people are being heroic as hell. They're willing to sacrifice their income, their well-being, to stand up against an abusive wrong. I hope this leads to real, directional, change.

 

[XDel]

Naturally if a company is not treating employees as humans, that would need to be dealt with. Treating employees as property is a practice from the slave era that needs to end.
As for sexism, racism, or what ever. What do they have mind readers? How do you know when a person is racist or sexist? Maybe they don't like you and your lack of work ethic? Maybe they don't like your attitude, or maybe their prejudice against you isn't warranted at all and they are just jerks, but how do you know they are racist or sexist? Are they married, do they keep their wife in a cage? Have you seen them petitioning to bring back Jim Crow's laws? Did they flirt with you at one time? Do you flirt with people sometimes? Did you know that if you flirt with men they should be able to flirt back? I have seen men get fired for sexual harassment because of women (in groups usually) who started the flirting them selves. So really, how do you know? It is hard to say, especially in today's climate where in everyone complains about the tiniest things. It only serves to make it harder to win the larger much more important victories.

 

[DarkKaine]

So something like this requires a protest to get started but the hot garbage game they put out requires just one player to whine to ban players for competitive trashtalk.
Just goes to show where the priorities are within free 2 play shovelware garbage companies lmao.

 

[kevin corms]

Normally I would take the complaints seriously, but lately there is a trend of toxic social justice... Hopefully it all gets sorted out and people can get along again.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

These people are being heroic as hell. They're willing to sacrifice their income, their well-being, to stand up against an abusive wrong. I hope this leads to real, directional, change.

Lets wait and see before we call them heroic. How many times do people need to make up bs stories about this sort of stuff before people start looking into before taking a side?

 

[osaka35]

Normally I would take the complaints seriously, but lately there is a trend of toxic social justice... Hopefully it all gets sorted out and people can get along again.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Lets wait and see before we call them heroic.

Why would they risk their jobs otherwise? The pressure to do such a thing must be equal to, or greater than, the risk. And just talking about organizing this, much less going through with this, is putting your job and livelihood on the line. Plus, with large chunks of the industry being toxic, it will damage their ability to find jobs elsewhere.

 

[kevin corms]

Why would they risk their jobs otherwise? The pressure to do such a thing must be equal to, or greater than, the risk. And just talking about organizing this, much less going through with this, is putting your job and livelihood on the line. Plus, with large chunks of the industry being toxic, it will damage their ability to find jobs elsewhere.

Well I detect a ton of confirmation bias in this statement, which chunks are toxic? Unless you mean the toxic social justice warriors who pull these sorts of stunts over and over lately. All it would take is for a couple of people who have the right minority cards saying someone was mean to them, which is why I will wait and see. If it turns out they are sexist and toxic ill join up with you.

They also fired Anita Sarkeesian for being sexist and toxic towards men on social media, Im going to wait and see how it shakes out but I have my suspicions. She went as far as asking the un to ban her critics...