Current and former Activision Blizzard Inc. employees participated in virtual and in-person walkouts Wednesday to call for changes to the company’s workplace culture amid disappointment with its reaction to allegations made in a recent lawsuit.
The suit, which was filed last week by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, accuses the largest U.S. videogame publisher by market value of paying female employees less than their male counterparts and providing them with fewer opportunities to advance. It also alleges that Activision ignored complaints by female employees of blatant harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
Activision previously said it would fight the charges and that the lawsuit included distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of its past. Late Tuesday, hours before the planned walkouts, Chief Executive Bobby Kotick said the company hired a law firm to investigate complaints of sexual harassment and gender-pay discrimination.
“Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf,” Mr. Kotick said in a Tuesday night statement. “It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.”
Those steps didn’t go far enough, some employees say, explaining that they didn’t address the need for greater pay transparency to ensure equality nor employee selection of a third party to audit human resources among other things.
