Nearly 1,900 Blizzard Staff Approve Initial CWA Agreements

Blizzard Entertainment workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) voted to ratify first union contracts with the Microsoft-owned company, the union announced on September 9, 2026. The new contracts cover nearly 1,900 workers across Blizzard’s game teams and shared services and follow two years of bargaining.

The ratification followed the Labor Day holiday and came days ahead of BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment’s flagship gaming convention in Anaheim, California.

The ratified terms extend to all units across the company, including union-represented workers at World of Warcraft, Quality Assurance, Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble, Overwatch, Diablo, and Blizzard’s Platform & Technology and Story and Franchise Development units.

“I’ve been at Blizzard for 20 years because I love this company and the amazing people I work with. This contract secures a lot of what people already love about working here while adding strong protections around layoffs, job security, and remote work. Blizzard helped shape the gaming industry, and I’m proud that this contract allows us to continue setting new standards for this work,” said Daniel Weltz, a Platform & Technology bargaining committee member and Principal Software Engineer.

Contract Terms

Alongside wage increases and grievance procedures, the contracts establish a three-day in-office hybrid workweek, just cause protections, and remote work and disability accommodations. They also require Blizzard to discuss, evaluate, and bargain over the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

In what CWA described as an industry first, the 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. Union workers also secured an extra four weeks of severance regardless of their tenure. According to CWA, the agreements reinforce several workplace benefits that set industry-wide standards for video game workers in the United States.

“This contract marks the beginning of a new era at Blizzard Entertainment,” said Simon Hedrick, an Overwatch bargaining committee member and Quality Analyst. Hedrick said he looks forward to the day everyone in the industry can enjoy the protections the contract affords, pointing to increased severance, recall rights in the event of a layoff, and the ability to grieve injustices in the workplace.

Layoffs During Negotiations

Industry layoffs were a prominent issue for bargaining committee members during negotiations, the union said. In July 2026, Microsoft’s gaming division — now rebranded as XBOX — announced 3,200 planned job reductions across XBOX, impacting hundreds of union members. Hundreds of CWA members and allies coordinated rallies across the United States and Canada in protest of the layoffs, including an August 2026 rally outside the Austin Activision building.

CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said the union’s members at Blizzard are leading the way for all XBOX studios, showing what video game workers can achieve when they have a voice in shaping their studios. He said it is a new day at Blizzard and that the bargaining teams had won strong contracts that set new standards for working people.

Union Organizing at Microsoft’s Game Studios

World of Warcraft workers became the first wall-to-wall union at Activision Blizzard in July 2024 with the formation of WoWGG-CWA.

Blizzard quality assurance workers at CWA Locals 1118 and 6215 later overwhelmingly ratified a three-year contract covering more than 60 workers in a range of quality assurance roles, according to a February 5, 2026, post from CWA Local 4217. That agreement included guaranteed wage increases, enhanced regulations around the usage of AI, crediting members for their work, reasonable disability accommodations, and restrictions on excessive overtime. Matt Gant, a CWA Local 6215 member and Blizzard Austin senior quality analyst, said the agreement provides a better working environment with increased pay, benefits, and layoff protections that include recall rights.

CWA Local 4217 described that agreement as the third contract at a Microsoft company, after ZeniMax workers ratified a contract in late June 2025 and Raven Software workers ratified one in August 2025. Since 2024, thousands of Microsoft video game workers have joined CWA under a neutrality agreement in which Microsoft agreed to take a neutral approach when covered employees express interest in joining the union.