Some employees say they don’t make ends meet, while their CEO makes $ 40 million a year.

Activision Blizzard is a company that does not have the best reputation for treating its employees. In 2019, after recording its new record earnings record, the board laid off 800 employees around the world to further increase that margin, and the $ 40 million earned by Bobby Kotick in 2019, its CEO, amazes compared to what Nintendo managers win, for setting an appropriate example from the same industry. Now, according to a report by Jason Schreier for Bloomberg, Blizzard employees are on the warpath over wage disparity within the company.

Last Friday, a document began to circulate among Blizzard workers, where each shared their current salary and the salary increases received compared to those promised by the company. Activision Blizzard reportedly carried out a study this year, after more than half of the workforce protested their salaries, promising to offer increases of around 10% to balance their employees’ salaries. However, the actual increases turned out to be much lower than that, with some workers claiming that they now earn far less than a decade ago when Activision had less of a hand at Blizzard. And this would have been the trigger for widespread discontent in the studio chats, which has led to the creation of the document.

According to Jason Schreier, some employees claim that they have only received a decent salary increase after leaving competing companies such as Riot Games. And others, since 2018, were talking about skipping meals by not being able to afford to have lunch in the company cafeteria, or postponing any plan to have children and start a family due to the impossibility of reaching the end of the month. For her part, a company representative has defended Activision Blizzard’s position, stating that “our goal has always been to ensure that we compensate our employees appropriately and competitively.”

“We constantly review our compensation philosophies to better recognize the talent of our best workers and stay competitive in the industry, all to reward and invest more in top employees.” For their part, and according to the report, the employees have also added Bobby Kotick’s salary to the document along with his millionaire bonuses, to highlight the difference. Not surprisingly, and as a 2019 report already indicated, the CEO of Activision Blizzard ranks among the most over-paid executives in the U.S. compared to his employees.

Source: Bloomberg

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