The Activision Blizzard board has asked shareholders to vote against a proposal which would have created an annual report on harassment and discrimination within the company. The report, proposed by New York state, would show:
- The “total number of pending sexual abuse, harassment or discrimination complaints the company is seeking to resolve.”
- The amount of money that used to settle claims.
- The number of outstanding cases.
“The Board believes that, rather than diverting energy and resources toward creating yet another report, we should continue to directly respond to employee concerns,” said Activision Blizzard in a filing.
Activision is famously a small indie publisher with ten staff and obviously cannot afford to give one person the week or so that would be needed to create that report. Oh wait, they’re not, they’re a massive company with thousands of staff and billions of profit so could quite easily spare the resources required.
A second motion, which would add a new AFL-CIO union member to the Activision Blizzard board who would be voted on by the staff of the company, has also been rejected as it would “side-step its own selection process for qualified board members.” Well that’s handy. Maybe you change the process?
The vote on the proposals will occur during Activision’s annual meeting on June 21st, perhaps the shareholders will have more moral responsibility that the Activision Blizzard and ignore the advice to vote against the proposals.
Activision Blizzard is currently in the process of being sold to Microsoft and recently a whopping 98% of Activision Blizzard shares have approved the proposed $68.7 billion buyout. However, there are still a number of legal hoops that need to be jumped through and the sale won’t be completed until next year. Microsoft will have some influence but as of right now they can’t step in and box the ears of the Activision Board and tell them to do the right thing.
Source: Axios
