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Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

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Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#121

Post by my_usernam3 »

x3iv130f wrote: post #107
brainfish wrote: post #26

I cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other. I haven't purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and qui…

A company is only just a shell. It is the creative people that work for a company that make the actual products. If you like a game, keep bookmarks on the people who made it and follow them around the industry.

Dreamhaven & frostgiant are the ones I'm following (and super hyped for), is there anything else I should be aware of?

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#122

Post by brainfish »

acituan wrote: post #108
brainfish wrote: post #26

I cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other. I haven't purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and qui…

> I for one will never again fire up those games that I loved so much That is a very confusing argument to me. Not only you’ve already given your money to them and received your end of the transaction, whether you make use of it or not, is this the most robust way to conceptualize the identity of a corporation? No temporal limitations, no account for the actual people that make up the corporation at a given time? Don…

> Sounds like this is less about the identity of the corporation you affiliated with and more about identity of you through what you choose to/not to affiliate with.

There is certainly an element of this, I am sure. But frankly it is that I don't want to give them even the millionth-of-a-cent of value that they could derive from my +1 to their active player numbers. I don't want to contribute anything to their advantage.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#123

Post by ggregoire »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #41
ashtonkem wrote: post #23

Union busting behavior is not that surprising, but talk about awful timing. Do the people at the top not consider the PR implications of this stuff?

Is it something they need to be worried about? I mean Activision Blizzard has been shit all over the years, and kids still buy their games. On the other hand hiring a firm is not a proof of wrongdoing for the ongoing trial.

> kids still buy their games

Any source on that? I always imagined the current Blizzard customer demographics in the 20-40 years old range. Kids definitely don't play WoW, Diablo or StarCraft/Warcraft. Not sure about Overwatch but I'd guess kids prefer Fortnite. So perhaps Hearthstone? You kinda need a credit card to enjoy the game tho.

But you have a point, people still buy their games, expansions, loot boxes, skins, monthly subsriptions and so on.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#124

Post by aksss »

runawaybottle wrote: post #65
biryani_chicken wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dystopian to see Chinese people consume American products at the expense of American workers.

The irony of what you are saying here is too much friend. Americans consumed Chinese goods at the expense of Chinese workers. I’m no CCP apologist by any measure.

> Americans consumed

Still a voracious consumer of Chinese goods, as is the world.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#125

Post by danaris »

mbostleman wrote: post #102
elicash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective bargaining is not at all incompatible with a "free market." It's just a smarter way to negotiate (more power collectively) and the end result is a contract between a company and a group of workers. It's not like, say, a minimum wage where government sets a price.

>>Collective bargaining is not at all incompatible with a "free market.">> For what it's worth, collective bargaining is, from an economic perspective, a monopoly. In anti trust terms it would constitute an illegal combination in trade if it weren't for statutory exemptions that explicitly give it a pass.

It's not really any more a monopoly than the business itself is.

The business/management is a group of people acting under a common umbrella seeking (naïvely, and oversimplifiedly) to trade the least money possible for the most production possible.

The employees/union are a group of people acting under a common umbrella seeking (naïvely, and oversimplifiedly) to trade the least production possible for the most money possible.

A union seeks to even the playing field between management and labor. It's not a monopoly unless the local union is affiliated with a global union that includes the vast majority of all workers in that particular field.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#126

Post by [deleted] »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #9

WilmerHale is not a notorious union-busting firm. The older set might know their work from A Civil Action, and their grandparents might remember the phrase that turned the red scare, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"[1] The marketing material is unfortunate, though, and the connection with Amazon labor work is notable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale...

[deleted]

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#127

Post by aksss »

cratermoon wrote: post #25
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #9

WilmerHale is not a notorious union-busting firm. The older set might know their work from A Civil Action, and their grandparents might remember the phrase that turned the red scare, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"[1] The marketing material is unfortunate, though, and the connection with Amazon labor work is notable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale...

What does any of that have to do with whether or not the firm is notorious for union-busting? Representing a polluting corporation against citizens suing it for making them sick is 100% compatible with busting unions. [Originally I had gotten this backwards and stated that WilmerHale represented the citizens]

If you're someone who craves moral certainty at the expense of honest inquiry, a person/company/historical figure cannot be both virtuous and flawed. They must be all one or all the other.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#128

Post by jakear »

a1pulley wrote: post #38

> "At WilmerHale 1st year counsel makes $350,000. The 24 year old 1st year summer associate still in law school walks into the office in a $1,500 Burberry suit and makes $202,500 that year. Those Amazon workers they swindled out of higher wages make less than $30,000 a year." The 200k figure is for a first-year associate who has graduated and passed the bar exam [1]. It's interesting to me that you can only hope to c…

levels.fyi shows 300k+ salaries for senior engineers at FAANG’s. Senior engineers are typically not 2 years out of college. Some exceptions I’m sure, but certainly not the majority.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#129

Post by pfranz »

seany wrote: post #8

I've never understood why people are confused or upset by these kinds of things. It's almost literally not in the companies best interest to just "let it happen" so why wouldn't they fight it?

I'm confused why you're confused. Making it more adversarial when it's obvious the company is in the wrong and has been negligent for so long is a great way to continue to burn your talent and reputation and doesn't sound like a great way to solve the long term problem, either. Being a public facing company a large part of this is public relations. Mediating or looking for good faith resolutions is what I would expect as a consumer or potential employee.

In 1982 someone laced Tylenol with potassium cyanide and seven people died. Johnson & Johnson within 2 months released a triple-sealed package and had a nation-wide recall. Their market share dropped from 35% to 8%, but rebounded within a year. It's often talked about as a great PR response.

I doubt Activision Blizzard feels the need to be as responsive to this situation, but I don't see this as a great reaction.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#130

Post by manux »

screye wrote: post #119
elicash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective bargaining is not at all incompatible with a "free market." It's just a smarter way to negotiate (more power collectively) and the end result is a contract between a company and a group of workers. It's not like, say, a minimum wage where government sets a price.

I actually elaborated on that in another comment in this thread. Unions are bureaucracy. Adding politics, people and power to any structure inherently adds inefficiencies. If individual bargaining is working just fine in an industry, then I would not push for collective bargaining. Because, it is tradeoff is between 'bridging the information asymmetry between how much power you think you command, vs what you actually…

Inefficiencies aren't always bad.

Efficiency, for example, is often the opposite of robustness. Many companies have learned that the hard way when COVID hit, even though they had an efficient supply chain and production pipeline, it was not robust.

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