Nearly 1,900 Blizzard Workers Ratify First Union Contracts with Microsoft

Nearly 1,900 Blizzard Entertainment workers represented by the Communications Workers of America voted Wednesday to ratify their first union contracts with Microsoft and Blizzard, securing wage increases, layoff protections, artificial intelligence bargaining requirements and a three-day hybrid work schedule, according to a CWA press release.

The Sept. 9 ratification stands out for both its scale and scope. CWA said the contracts cover workers across major Blizzard teams including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and shared services, making it one of the largest contract wins yet for organized labor at a Microsoft-owned game studio. The union said bargaining took two years and framed the deal as arriving just days before BlizzCon, Blizzard’s annual fan convention, scheduled for Sept. 12-13 in Anaheim.

According to CWA, the contracts include wage increases, grievance procedures, just-cause protections, remote-work and disability accommodations, and a three-day in-office hybrid workweek. The union also said Blizzard must discuss, evaluate and bargain over the use of AI in the workplace. On layoffs, CWA said members won recall rights into open positions across any Blizzard bargaining unit for 14 months from the date of a layoff announcement — a protection the union called “an industry first” — as well as an additional four weeks of severance regardless of tenure.

“I’ve been at Blizzard for 20 years because I love this company and the amazing people I work with,” Daniel Weltz, a Platform & Technology bargaining committee member and principal software engineer, said in the CWA release. “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 President Johanna Faries welcomed the vote in a statement reported by Game Developer. “We appreciate the dedication and engagement of our represented employees and the bargaining committees throughout this process, as well as every Blizzard employee whose work continued alongside it,” Faries said. “The ratification of these agreements marks a significant milestone…”

The deal is the first contract for this broader set of Blizzard workers, not the first union agreement in gaming or at a Microsoft-owned studio. Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard on Oct. 13, 2023, bringing Blizzard into Xbox’s gaming business. Before that, Microsoft and CWA signed a labor-neutrality agreement in June 2022 that helped clear a path for organizing across Activision Blizzard and Xbox studios. Other Microsoft-owned game studios had already reached CWA contracts, including ZeniMax workers in 2025, Raven Software in 2025 and Blizzard QA workers in January 2026. What makes Wednesday’s ratification notable is the breadth of Blizzard teams now covered under contract.

The timing also reflects a year of anxiety over jobs in Microsoft’s gaming business. CWA tied the contract fight to the company’s July 2026 announcement of 3,200 planned job reductions across its gaming division, followed by rallies involving union members and allies. That backdrop helps explain why recall rights and extra severance featured so prominently in the final agreements.