We are, once again, at the point where some companies start pushing for people who were working from home to go back to the office. In some cases, companies will require workers to be vaccinated before coming into the workplace. Unfortunately, Activision Blizzard, a company that has several lawsuits issued against it, decided now is the time to drop their coronavirus vaccine mandate. Some employees are strongly against that decision.

Kotaku posted the full letter from Activision Blizzard Chief Administrative Officer Brian Bulatao to workers. The key paragraph is:

Everyone, As conditions improve and we prepare to welcome more of you back to our offices, I’d like to share an update regarding our vaccine policy. Effective immediately, we are lifting our vaccine mandate for all U.S. employees. This means that employees no longer need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to return to the office…

The Washington Post reported that in response to the company’s decision to drop their coronavirus vaccine mandate workers staged a virtual walkout in protest. This is Activision Blizzard’s fourth walkout since July of 2021.

According to The Washington Post, ahead of Monday’s walkout, the ABK Workers Alliance – which organized the company’s previous walkouts – posted a statement to Twitter calling for the company to “make working from home an equal and equitable option for all employees” and to reinstate the vaccine mandate at Activision Blizzard-owned studios that have not already done so.

The @ABetterABK Twitter account posted a short thread about the walkout: “Due to new RTO policy around no longer mandating vaccination requirements in regards to the ongoing pandemic, a group of ABK employees will be conducting a walkout on Monday April 4 at 10am PDT. We have 3 demands:”

Their demands were: An immediate reversal to lifting the vaccine requirement. Remote work should be offered as a permanent solution. The decision to work remote or in office should be made by each individual employee.

TechCrunch reported: Employees voiced concern about the plan, which would make returning to work especially unsafe for immunocompromised staff. Blizzard has almost 10,000 employees, though they are spread across a variety of global offices. But eliminating vaccine mandates and other tactics to reduce the spread of COVID-19 struck some workers as short sighted and brazen.

According to TechCrunch, Brian Bulatao walked back his message soon after the announcement of a walkout. He declared that individual studios could choose whether or not to enforce a vaccine mandate, but members of ABK Workers Alliance felt this response was unsatisfactory.

The Wall Street Journal reported that CEO of Activision Blizzard Inc., Bobby Kotick, knew for years about sexual-misconduct allegations at the “videogame giant” he leads. This allegation is not news to fans of the games made by the company, or to former and current employees, some of whom took to social media to share their terrible experiences at the company.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Activision has been thrown into turmoil in recent months by multiple regulatory investigations into alleged sexual assaults and mistreatment of female employees dating back years. Mr. Kotick has told directors and other executives he wasn’t aware of many of the allegations of misconduct, and he has played down others. This information came from people familiar with the matter and internal documents.

Here is a significant paragraph from The Wall Street Journal:

Those documents, which include memos, emails and regulatory requests, and interviews with former employees and others familiar with the company, however, cast Mr. Kotick’s response in a different light. They show that he knew about allegations of employee misconduct in many parts of the company. He didn’t inform the board of directors about everything he knew, the interviews and documents show, even after regulators began investigating the incidents in 2018. Some departing employees who were accused of misconduct were praised on the way out, while their co-workers were asked to remain silent about the matters.

Today, employees at Activision Blizzard engaged in a second walkout, specifically asking for CEO Bobby Kotick to be replaced. The @ABetterABK Twitter welcomed people to join the walkout. It also called for CEO Bobby Kotick to be replaced. It also will continue to hold their original demand for third-party review by an employee-chosen source.

The Wall Street Journal article includes examples of alleged misconduct by Activision employees that have not previously been reported. I will leave it up to you to decide whether or not it is healthy for you to read those descriptions.

As someone who has spent a lot of time playing some of Blizzard’s games, I find it extremely troubling that the company continues to have a huge problem with sexual harassment and sexual assaults. Based on The Wall Street Journal article, it appears that CEO Bobby Kotick knew what was happening and intentionally allowed this type of behavior to continue. He should be removed from the company.