Microsoft and Activision partner Lionbridge accused of unfair labor practice

If you haven’t heard of Lionbridge before, it’s a company that has provides QA services for various gaming companies, including Microsoft and Activision. However, what’s put it in the limelight lately is an allegation of unfair labor practice. The Communication Workers of America say that an entire 160-person team was laid off in retaliation for “engaging in protected organizing activities and protected speech when raising issues regarding their working conditions.”

This comes via press release from the CWA labor union, which has already filed an unfair labor practice charge against Lionbridge. It has added that the 160-team based in Boise, Idaho was told they were being let go because work on a project had ended. However, the CWA asserts that separate teams in Mexico and Poland are still working on the very same project.

As if that wasn’t enough, the CWA has brought to attention a similar incident from 2016. Per GeekWire, Lionbridge laid off all unionized employees in Bellevue, Washington who were testing Windows apps for Microsoft. This came only two months after temporary workers had signed their first union contract. At the time, Lionbridge insisted this was due to Microsoft offering less work though former employees believed this wasn’t the case. As such, the CWA has claimed both of these waves of lay-offs are retaliation for unionizing.

Since the affected team provided quality-assurance services to Activision, now a Microsoft subsidiary, the CWA has said it expects the Xbox company to “hold its contractors to the same standards the company has set for itself.” In the past, Microsoft has stated it has no issues with unionization efforts, publicly recognizing ZeniMax Workers United (a union for ZeniMax Media’s Q&A department) in 2023, and it even ran an ad in the Washington Post all about how much it approves of unions. It’s worth nothing that this was during the period when Microsoft was seeking approval for its approximately $68.7 billion buyout of Activision. We’ve contacted Microsoft for a comment on the matter and will be sure to update this article should we get a response.

There has been a noticeable surge in unionization efforts within the games industry in the last few years. For instance, QA workers within Blizzard Albany and Raven Software (two Activision studios that are now part of Microsoft) voted to unionize in 2022. In early 2023, two QA employees within Activision were fired for expressing outrage with “strong language” in response to a mandate for a partial return-to-office stipulation, but the CWA said this was a violation of workplace laws and filed charges against the company.