Blizzard employee claims company demoted her after reporting sexual harassment Pexels, Shora Shimazaki \/ ActivisionAn Activision Blizzard employee has claimed the company retaliated against and demoted her after she reported sexual harassment. She claims she was subjected to \u201cunwanted sexual advances\u201d and \u201cinvited to have casual sex\u201d by supervisors while working there. On the steps of Activision Blizzard\u2019s offices on December 8, an employee named Christine, alongside attorney Lisa Bloom, shared her story of sexual harassment at the company for the first time. Christine has worked at Activision Blizzard for four years, and is still employed there today. It was her \u201cdream job\u201d. However, her experience at the company, which has been embroiled in controversy over its \u201cfrat boy culture\u201d in 2021, has reportedly been filled with sexual harassment. \u201cWhen I first heard about all the talented people working at Blizzard, I knew that was somewhere I wanted to work and somewhere I could excel in my career. I was excited to be a part of a community that seemed to care so much about their employees,\u201d Christine said. \u201cUnfortunately, that didn\u2019t happen to me.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve been subjected to rude comments about my body, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriately touched, subjected to alcohol-infused events and \u2018cube crawls\u2019 [an act outlined in the Californian DFEH lawsuit against the company], invited to have casual sex with my supervisors, and surrounded by a frat boy culture that\u2019s detrimental to women.\u201d Christine claims after she reported the claims of sexual harassment, Activision Blizzard retaliated against her. She was reportedly demoted, further harassed, denied full profit sharing, denied shares in the company, and had minimal raises. The company posted a $639 million profit in the third-quarter of 2021, plus a 22% increase in net revenue in the Blizzard division alone to $478 million. \u201cWhen I complained to my supervisors, I was told \u2018They were just joking\u2019 and that I should get over it,\u201d she said. \u201cI was told not to go to HR. I was told that the harassing men were \u2018just trying to be friends with me.\u2019 I was told, \u2018They did nothing wrong by law.\u2019\u201d \u201cFighting to keep my job in this toxic workplace culture has taken a severe toll on my mental health.\u201d View this post on Instagram Christine\u2019s attorney, Lisa Bloom, stated at the December 8 press conference that \u201csexual harassment victims at Activision Blizzard have been ignored\u201d, and the company\u2019s attempts to try and fix the problem have been insufficient. \u201cGiven that there are hundreds of victims, I think we can all agree the $18 million number is woefully inadequate,\u201d she said, talking about the company\u2019s current discrimination fund value set by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Bloom outlined three demands, on behalf of all Activision Blizzard employees, not just Christine. The attorney requested Blizzard increase their legal fund to \u201cin excess of $100 million\u201d, and let \u201cvictim advocates participate in setting the rules\u201d of settlements. She also demanded the company releases a \u201creal apology\u201d to Christine and other victims of sexual harassment and retalization, as well as a review by a \u201cneutral third-party\u201d to determine the career damage employees have suffered as a result of sexual harassment. Workers at the company filed a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaints in September over fears of intimidation. \u201cWe demand that Activision Blizzard prioritize its sexual harassment victims beginning now. We don\u2019t need more corporate \u2018blah blah blah\u2019. It\u2019s time for action.\u201d In a statement to Polygon, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said: \u201cWe appreciate the courage of our current and former employees in coming forward with reports of misconduct, and we are truly sorry for any victims of people whose conduct did not live up to our values. \u201cAs we have continued to reaffirm in our recent communications, such conduct is not consistent with our standards, our expectations, and what the vast majority of our employees meet on a daily basis. \u201cThe company is committed to creating an environment we can all be proud of. We are in the process of implementing significant changes and improvements to the scope, structure and efficiency of our compliance and human resources teams, reporting systems, and transparency into our investigation process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Blizzard employee claims company demoted her after reporting sexual harassment Pexels, Shora Shimazaki \/ ActivisionAn Activision Blizzard employee has claimed the company retaliated against and demoted her after she reported sexual harassment. She claims she was subjected to \u201cunwanted sexual advances\u201d and \u201cinvited to have casual sex\u201d by supervisors while working there. On the steps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}