Activision workers plan walkout to force CEO's removal
Tuesday detailing allegations of rape at one of Activision’s studios and said Kotick had been informed of the alleged incidents, which are said to have occurred in 2016 and 2017, as well as an out-of-court settlement, and failed to report them to the board. The newspaper cites interviews, company emails, regulatory requests and other internal documents that informed its reporting that Kotick knew about employee misconduct in many parts of the company.
A spokeswoman for Activision told the Journal: “Kotick would not have been informed of every report of misconduct at every Activision Blizzard company, nor would he reasonably be expected to have been updated on all personnel issues.” She said Activision sometimes “fell short of ensuring that all of our employees’ behavior was consistent with our values and our expectations.
Kotick doubled down on his defense of the company’s actions to improve the workplace culture in recent months. In a video to employees Tuesday morning seen by Bloomberg he said, “Anyone who doubts my conviction to be the most welcoming and inclusive workplace doesn’t really appreciate how important this is to me.”
The Journal reported that since news of the California lawsuit broke this summer, Activision has received more than 500 reports of “harassment, sexual assault, bullying, pay disparities and other issues” from employees. Kotick was aware of, and at times even interfered with, these reports, according to the Journal. Dan Bunting, co-head of the “Call of Duty” studio Treyarch, was accused of sexually harassing a female employee in 2017.
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