Activision’s Boston studio workers announce unionization By Reuters

(Reuters) – A majority of workers at videogame publisher Activision Blizzard Inc (NASDAQ:)’s recently acquired studio Proletariat said on Tuesday that they are forming a union with the Communications Workers of America.

The move would make the Boston-based studio, the third Activision Blizzard studio to seek unionization.

The 57 workers in the Proletariat unit – that include animators, designers, engineers, producers and quality assurance workers – said they have filed for a union representation election with the National Labor Relations Board.

Earlier in July, Activision said that it had Proletariat to expand the development pipeline of its online role-playing game “World of Warcraft”. Activision did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Workers who test games at Activision’s unit Blizzard Albany have voted to form a union months after the company began negotiating with employees at its Wisconsin unit, the first in the company to unionize.

Xbox maker Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:) agreed to buy the Call of Duty maker for $69 billion, a deal that has faced antitrust backlash from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the European Union and the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority.