Activision Blizzard, California settle gender discrimination lawsuit for $54M

[emorphy]

Why it matters: This is the second largest settlement that the California Civil Rights Department has negotiated and originally it had wanted Activision Blizzard to pay far more. But since the suit was filed two years ago, Activision has taken a number of steps to create a culture of inclusivity and diversity at the company including hiring its first dedicated chief diversity officer last year.

Activision Blizzard and the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) have settled a lawsuit in which the video game publisher was accused of widespread gender and pay inequality for roughly $54 million.

Under the agreement, which is still subject to court approval, Activision Blizzard will take additional steps to help ensure fair pay and promotion practices at the company and provide monetary relief to women who were employees or contract workers in the state between October 12, 2015 and December 31, 2020, according to a statement by CRD.

The CRD investigated the Santa Monica, Calif.-headquartered company for more than two years and then filed a lawsuit against it in 2021 for alleged violations of California's Equal Pay Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act.

Separately, the now Microsoft-owned company struck a consent decree with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2021 on these issues.

Activision Blizzard hasn't released a comment but in the past has denied the charges and said a 2022 investigation by its board of directors ultimately determined that they were false.

Earlier this year upon the release of its ESG report, Brian Bulatao, Activision's chief administrative officer and chair of its ESG steering committee, wrote that the company has taken several steps to increase its inclusion and diversity including hiring last year its first dedicated chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer and appointing its first head of inclusive game design. It has also partnered with Reboot Representation to increase the number of Black, Latin, and Native American women in technology, according to Bulatao.

The settlement calls for $54.8 million to cover direct relief to workers and litigation costs. Of that, $45.7 million will go to a settlement fund dedicated to compensating workers.

The settlement also requires Activision Blizzard to retain an independent consultant to evaluate and make recommendations regarding its compensation and promotion policies and training materials.

If approved, the settlement would be the second-largest by CRD, according to the Wall Street Journal. The highest settlement was for $100 million with Riot Games, over alleged gender discrimination. Riot Games issued an apology after the settlement was announced.

The CRD had wanted an amount from Activision that would top the settlement Riot Games paid, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the negotiations, as the state originally estimated Activision's liability to be at nearly $1 billion based on 2,500 employees who might have claims against the company.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101231-activision-blizzard-california-settle-gender-discrimination-lawsuit-54m.html

 

[Skjorn]

Hiring someone because you have to because they look a certain way is ****ing crazy. Hiring the right person doesn't mean they have to look a certain way by percentage. "Hey uhh sorry you were really great. Your resume looks incredible but we can't hire you, the law says you gotta be one of willy Wonkas oompa loompas to write code for us. Sorry."
Paying employee A more than employee B because B looks a certain way seems kinda unbelievable to me. And maybe instead of just going off looks for who is being discriminated they could check the performance contributions of suspected victims to see if they actually deserve anything more or even less. Might find employee B complains more than contributes.

 

[Kam7r]

Hiring sometime because you have to because they look a certain way is ****ing crazy. Hiring the right person doesn't mean they have to look a certain way by percentage. "Hey uhh sorry you were really great. Your resume looks incredible but we can't hire you, the law says you gotta be one of willy Wonkas oompa loompas to write code for us. Sorry."
Paying employee A more than employee B because B looks a certain way seems kinda unbelievable to me. And maybe instead of just going off looks for who is being discriminated they could check the performance contributions of suspected victims to see if they actually deserve anything more or even less. Might find employee B complains more than contributes.

as I am 100% ok with men and women making the same amount of money for the same job / qualifications and I'm baffled that kind of cr@p still exist in our time...

but you don't understand, those W... they know what is good and bad, not us puny mortals, they're enlightened ... they're fighting discrimination with ... discrimination ... we're just too stupid to understand.

but don't worry all those nutcases always come running crying to us, the "normal" dudes and everybody they see as "enemies" , when sh!t hit the fan to protect their spineless existance.

I had a bad day sry.

 

[RudyBob]

It's all related to birth control pills

 

[toooooot]

"has taken several steps to increase its inclusion and diversity including hiring last year its first dedicated chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer"
On one side, I am glad for these people who are getting these jobs.
Obviously, it is the only place they can get a job that requires to do nothing and pays well.
But let's be honest, this is a job of a parasite, a job of a leech that sits there and sucks company's money.
Not to mention another aspect. I mean the aspect where passion and inspiration is replaced by political correctness and almost animalistic fear to offend ever offended people who do not buy their games.
I do not believe that a honest person with strong values and human decency would ever accept
a job of a diversity officer. It is most definitely for people who already accepted they will not get
hired to do anything useful and therefore obediently allow ESG to dress them in ESG certified clown suits and then drag them on stage to entertain woke mobs.

 

[WhoCaresAnymore]

Hiring based on race is racism. Hire the most qualified. God almighty. This woke sh*t is out of control.

 

[nulll]

This is yet another thing that can be resolved via complete transparency related to quarterly/yearly performance reviews conducted by a third party agency (ideally the third party agency would be highly and effectively regulated by the local government but still a completely private company). Shareholders which are mostly common folk trying to build a reasonable portfolio to eventually retire on would be served with the most succinct breakdown of effective staff versus layabouts and the personal info of the staff would be redacted to keep their personal lives out of it. Same as any decently scientific structure it would be double blind.

To be clear this is something that needs to start with government at the top levels and move downward all the way to the municipal level first before ever entering the private sector as that ensures the inevitable end run around the intent of the regulatory process by sufficiently ideological motivated individuals inside the bureaucratic structure. A lot of what gets attributed to the w... is really just the down stream consequences of 80 years of continual expansion of the public sector into a nearly immovable ossified mass (mess?). Simply look at the staffing dichotomy between the public and private sectors over the last say 40 years of the digital age. The private sector keeps getting more efficiency out of the same number of worker hours due the force multiplier of the technology in the workplace while the public sector at any level above small towns seems to be getting more bloated year on year.

I could have bought a passable fake ID online and had it shipped to my house almost 20 years ago but I couldn't renew my drivers license online till 2019?? WTF!

 

[kiwigraeme]

See people screaming woke here - the thing is this stuff is messy as hell , not 0 or 1 ( to avoid colour ref. )
Discrimination is real , pay inequity is real

Rich white kids have had positive discrimination like forever - Cops turn a blind eye to drugs , vandalism to from frat parties, passed out girl raped - more money to police fund
Kids getting into Universities with inadequate grades - nice but dim Tim - given a cushy job etc

Having been an employer myself - I try to give everyone a chance - but I definitely had prejudices - nothing to do with colour , sex - but cultures - some cultures have less respect for women ( I pay if anything goes wrong )

I also understand fear and the ease of going with comfit ( what you know - this person will fit in - easy to communicate with )

What's interesting is The USA should be more willing to diversify employment as so easy to sack people - no reason F off ability - compared to Aust, NZ, EU
Yes especially for small companies interviewing , training is a huge time sink and costs money - but less so for these big companies.

I think from stories a few years ago - this company was toxic for some women

 

[m4a4]

See people screaming woke here - the thing is this stuff is messy as hell , not 0 or 1 ( to avoid colour ref. )
Discrimination is real , pay inequity is real

Naw, it's pretty black and white (basic colour contrast, FYI). A different form of discrimination to "combat" discrimination is still discrimination (y'know, the thing they're trying to fix).....

If the "woke" lived in the current reality, they would see the irony and use actual logic lol

 

[Shaitan]

This gender crap is exactly why no good games can come out of blizzard nowadays.
Games can't be revolutionary, can't invent, can't offend, can't ask questions and can't make you feel any emotions.
Games need to be choke full of strong independent wahmen Mary Sue which never had any male training. Good forbid they lose in front of a man.
Not to forget about diverse sexual orientation, but not in middle east countries, of course!
This is why I'm never touching any Blizzard or Activision games with a 10 feet pole.
Get woke go broke.

 

[Nobina]

Let's hire people based on race in an effort to not be racist - isn't that ironic?

Everything game companies do is to cover up what's really happening over there. Nothing is actually being done to improve the working conditions and atmoshpere. They just mask it up with the usual inclusivity and diversity talk.

 

[Beerfloat]

All relevant performance statistics being equal, the underrepresented should get preferential hiring. The effort should be to undo the lopsided skew that is the actual current reality, which was (partly) caused by very real biases in hiring in the past.

It ain't woke. It ain't racist. It just makes sense. Get off your fainting couches and man up, ffs.

 

[Uncle Al]

Perhaps I'm wrong but I was under the opinion that last years settlements and SCOUS decisions had all but elliminated race based hiring requirements ..... of course with these being several years old I guess they still have to work their way through the system .....

 

[WhoCaresAnymore]

Perhaps I'm wrong but I was under the opinion that last years settlements and SCOUS decisions had all but elliminated race based hiring requirements

Have you been watching all of the stuff coming out of this administration? They care nothing about the law.

 

[Beerfloat]

Have you been watching all of the stuff coming out of this administration? They care nothing about the law.

Oh yeah?

Well if it's that blatant impeachment should be a walk in the park.

But nothing specific. Of course.

 

[Bamda]

I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this but there are a lot of you snowflakes out there that don't realize on the other hand there are a lot of people that have been getting screwed and it's been going on for centuries if not longer. In the USA where I live, we fought a War for equality. That fact is Bigotry and Racism will not go away because of laws, but it does give some assistance in fighting the most egregious offenders.