Blizzard Entertainment's union—in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America (CWA)—has just signed a landmark contract with the studio to, among other things, force it to "discuss, evaluate, and bargain" any time it wants to introduce generative AI in the workplace.
As explained on the CWA website, this contract has been in the works for two years and impacts around 1900 workers from across the studio, including those working on World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, QA, Overwatch, and Diablo. The contract itself does a lot of good for these people, who are living in an era of uncertainty thanks to Xbox's 'reset' that has impacted over 1600 jobs and is soon to jeopardise 1600 more.
That good includes: "wage increases, grievance procedures, a three-day in-office hybrid workweek, 'just cause' protections, remote work, and disability accommodations". Most notably, however, is a stipulation that Blizzard needs to run any AI usage by the workplace first.
"The contracts now require Blizzard to discuss, evaluate, and bargain over the usage of artificial intelligence in the workplace," reads the announcement. Essentially, this means that Microsoft cannot simply top-down enforce AI usage as it's been known to do in the past in its software development divisions.
Regarding the hanging sword of Xbox's 2027 deadline for future layoffs, union workers will also be protected if it comes to it: "In an industry first, the new union contracts give workers the right to be 'recalled' into open positions across any Blizzard bargaining unit for 14 months from the date of their layoff announcement. Workers have also secured an extra 4 weeks of severance for union workers regardless of their tenure. "
On the victory, QA worker and bargaining committee member Simon Hedrick says: "I believe that the positive change we have won will ripple out and help make the games industry as a whole a better place for workers and players alike. This contract is the start of something greater, and I urge everyone to remember: when we fight together, we win together. "
It's a major victory for a studio that, like most others under Xbox's umbrella, has a vague and impending sense of doom following it. In a sane world, I'd say Blizzard makes enough bank to be safe, that's just not the kind of industry we live in. You can get valued at $68.7 billion by Microsoft and still lose.