The State of California is suing Activision Blizzard over allegations of workplace discrimination

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Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit from the State of California regarding claims of inequality in pay and workplace discrimination against women working for the company. California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing agency (DFEH) has filed a 29-page legal document against Activision, which is headquartered in California, alleging that there is a "rampant frat boy workplace culture" that has lead to harassment, dismissal of complaints made to human resources regarding discrimination, and more, with even evidence to prove such, following the conclusion to a two-year-long investigation.

The DFEH found that women employed at Activision Blizzard made less money than male employees with the same job title or for the same amount of work, in addition to finding that women were fired on a much more frequent basis compared to men, despite the former only making up around 20% of the company's workforce. Other claims include that Activision's higher-ups are complicit in and take part in disrespectful "cube crawl" events, where male employees will, "drink copious amounts of alcohol as they "crawl" their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees".

The goal of the lawsuit is to make Activision Blizzard comply with California's labor code, and adhere to equal pay laws within the state via an injunction, as well as seeking relief payments for unpaid wages and damages for the affected women defendants who have worked for or still work for Activision Blizzard.

Following the filing of the suit, an official statement from Activision was sent to media outlets, claiming that the allegations were "distorted, and in many cases, false descriptions of Blizzard's past", adding that they have been cooperative with the DFEH throughout the past two year's worth of their investigation. From Blizzard's perspective, the company has, supposedly, "made significant" changes in recent years and have implemented "anti-harassment training", among other preventions.

We value diversity and strive to foster a workplace that offers inclusivity for everyone. There is no place in our company or industry, or any industry, for sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind. We take every allegation seriously and investigate all claims. In cases related to misconduct, action was taken to address the issue.

The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. They were required by law to adequately investigate and to have good faith discussions with us to better understand and to resolve any claims or concerns before going to litigation, but they failed to do so. Instead, they rushed to file an inaccurate complaint, as we will demonstrate in court. We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family. While we find this behavior to be disgraceful and unprofessional, it is unfortunately an example of how they have conducted themselves throughout the course of their investigation. It is this type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State’s best businesses out of California.

The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today. Over the past several years and continuing since the initial investigation started, we’ve made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams. We’ve amplified internal programs and channels for employees to report violations, including the “ASK List” with a confidential integrity hotline, and introduced an Employee Relations team dedicated to investigating employee concerns. We have strengthened our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and combined our Employee Networks at a global level, to provide additional support. Employees must also undergo regular anti-harassment training and have done so for many years.

We put tremendous effort in creating fair and rewarding compensation packages and policies that reflect our culture and business, and we strive to pay all employees fairly for equal or substantially similar work. We take a variety of proactive steps to ensure that pay is driven by non-discriminatory factors. For example, we reward and compensate employees based on their performance, and we conduct extensive anti-discrimination trainings including for those who are part of the compensation process.

We are confident in our ability to demonstrate our practices as an equal opportunity employer that fosters a supportive, diverse, and inclusive workplace for our people, and we are committed to continuing this effort in the years to come. It is a shame that the DFEH did not want to engage with us on what they thought they were seeing in their investigation.

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Xzi

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On the flip side, no one is strapping you down, forcing you to stay here. The door is always open to come in or leave.
The door really shouldn't be open to certain individuals, at least not if GBAtemp wants to remain a welcoming environment for more than just the pre-teen males typically found on Xbox Live.

Anyway, it's pretty amusing to me how everybody normally hates Activision as a publisher/developer, but certain people immediately jump to the defense of their high-level executives when the topic of sexual harassment is broached.
 
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Xzi

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Well that's the first time Cali has done something right in a long time lol
I mean they are the country's number one economy lol, a ton of red states would have collapsed a long time ago without California's contributions. I'd certainly agree that the culture there can be a little over-the-top and full of themselves, but that's true of several other states as well. At least it's not New Jersey or Texas.

(Keeping in mind there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so being the most capitalist state isn't necessarily an honor.)
 
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the_randomizer

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I mean they are the country's number one economy lol, a ton of red states would have collapsed a long time ago without California's contributions. I'd certainly agree that the culture there can be a little over-the-top and full of themselves, but that's true of several other states as well. At least it's not New Jersey or Texas.

(Keeping in mind there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so being the most capitalist state isn't necessarily an honor.)

Be that as it may, I question those in power and their refusal to lower the cost of living, taxes and helping the homeless, but that's for another thread.
On topic, I hope Activision suffers and people pirate their games to piss them off.
 
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RedBlueGreen

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Jesus christ this is one of the worst comments that I have ever seen in this website.
With that being said, being a woman and having not even a lot of experience in office environments you can already tell the gender difference, most of the times due to pure bias. People tend to think certain practices are justifiable, specially when it comes to optimizing profit (by making a proper management, for instance) but this is simply not true and you will see people defying logic again and again for the most stupid reasons.
[citation needed]
 
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Viri

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The door really shouldn't be open to certain individuals, at least not if GBAtemp wants to remain a welcoming environment for more than just the pre-teen males typically found on Xbox Live.

Anyway, it's pretty amusing to me how everybody normally hates Activision as a publisher/developer, but certain people immediately jump to the defense of their high-level executives when the topic of sexual harassment is broached.
I know this thread is actually gaming related, but this thread has turned quite political, and probably belongs in the political section at this point. lol
 
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Xzi

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I know this thread is actually gaming related, but this thread has turned quite political, and probably belongs in the political section at this point. lol
It doesn't need to be political, but yes unfortunately some people make it part of their political identity to dismiss or belittle all allegations of sexual harassment. It's more of an ethical and legal issue.
 

Sakuraibr

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[citation needed]
if you don't know what practical knowledge is, do your homework and walk around and talk with some women, specially the ones invested in management positions. I won't waste my time citing some books or articles as I'm not your Wikipedia, study office cultures and their history yourself if you need citations.
 
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RedBlueGreen

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Another reason why Tencent and the CCP are fucking trash
I really don't think them buying lots of companies up is really any worse than American companies doing it. It's shitty nickle and diming their players that makes Tencent and subsidiaries like Riot bad, as well as their rootkit anti-cheat. The CCP is bad because they either have a hand in or turn a blind eye to human rights violations and animal cruelty and oppress their people. There's a reason so many Chinese emigrate to live in the US and Canada. (hell, they're probably 5% of the Canadian population at this point) The one good thing the Chinese government does is fine companies for monopolistic behaviour which should be a thing elsewhere too.
 

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