Blizzard QA workers secure three-year union deal with Microsoft — US

After nearly three years of negotiations, quality assurance staff at Blizzard’s Albany and Austin studios have voted to approve a three-year collective bargaining agreement with Microsoft, marking a significant organized labor win within the games division. The contract delivers guaranteed wage increases and establishes clearer rules governing employer use of generative artificial intelligence, including provisions for attribution and limits on automated replacement of worker tasks. It also formalizes reasonable disability accommodations and creates safeguards intended to protect immigrant employees from disciplinary actions that could threaten seniority or employment eligibility while simplifying verification processes. To address chronic industry concerns about excessive work hours, the agreement introduces mandatory overtime caps designed to reduce crunch and preserve predictable schedules. The deal provides layoff protections that include recall rights, bolstering job security for QA roles that have historically been vulnerable during restructures. Local union leaders say combining bargaining power across two sites strengthened their leverage and produced improvements that would have been harder to secure independently. This ratification is the third union pact approved under Microsoft’s ownership of multiple studios, following earlier agreements at other acquired teams, and signals accumulating momentum for organized representation in game development. The timing follows a period of significant cuts across Microsoft's gaming units, underscoring the tension between corporate restructuring and localized efforts to stabilize employment terms. For Microsoft, the contract imposes new operational constraints—on scheduling, AI deployment, and rehiring practices—that will require administrative adjustments and budgetary planning. For the broader industry, the agreement adds to a patchwork of negotiated standards that could be referenced in future bargaining across studios and publishers. While the immediate financial scale of raises was not disclosed publicly, the non-economic protections and procedural changes have the potential to reshape QA work conditions and set precedents for other technical and support roles. The compact covers just over sixty QA staff, so its direct labor-cost impact on Microsoft is modest but symbolically important. Moving forward, union leadership and company management will need to translate contractual language into day-to-day enforcement, a process likely to reveal differing interpretations and require joint mechanisms for dispute resolution. Ultimately, the pact demonstrates that sustained organizing in the games sector can produce tangible safeguards against precarious employment practices and emerging technological risks.