While Activision Blizzard defended its innocence from the outset in the face of accusations of harassment, abuse and discrimination in its studios, pressure from workers prevented them from wringing the bullet .
And now, the state of California has expanded its lawsuit against the Call of Duty company to also include abuse of its temporary workers. And not only that, they are openly accused of destroying evidence and interfering with the investigation.Registered last Monday, the updated version of the lawsuit shared by Axios expands its scope by also adding the testimonies and accusations of the temporary workers of Activision Blizzard .
Until now, California agencies have interceded only on behalf of female workers on the staff. Along with this, as we mentioned, the California Department of Housing and Fair Employment (DFEH) , who are leading the lawsuit, claim that Activision Blizzard actively interferes in the process to make it difficult.
On the one hand, the DFEH claims that Activision Blizzard takes advantage of its employees’ confidentiality agreements to force them to speak with them first before contacting this department, all with the help of the outside firm WilmerHale they hired to review their procedures. , known for his anti-union causes against workers.
The state of California claims that all of this “directly interferes” with its ability to ” investigate, prosecute and remedy discrimination and harassment in the workplace on behalf of employees and workers.”On the other hand, and this is a verbatim quote from the new lawsuit, the DFEH states the following: ” documents related to the investigations and complaints were destroyed by personnel from the Human Resources department .”
A clear violation of the company’s legal obligation to retain such documents during an ongoing investigation, which is the subtle way of saying that they are destroying the evidence .With the image of Activision Blizzard on the floor , causing strikes and internal riots in their teams, last week the news broke that Call of Duty: Vanguard had hidden the Activision logo in its trailer. A clear attempt to distance itself from the controversy, although the company claims that it is simply due to a creative decision .