SOC Investment Group executive director Dieter Waizenegger scolded Activision Blizzard in August 10 after the frat boy scandal, insensitive letter to employees, and the hiring of WilmerHale. Nigh three weeks later, SOC research director, Richard Clayton, is further pressuring ATVI with a Slate interview. This interview is a suckerpunch directed at the ATVI directors, and a warning that this isn’t over.
We felt as a shareholder, it was important for us to communicate to the board that we did not believe that the company’s responses to that lawsuit or to activity by workers was sufficient and that they needed to do additional things, and if they weren’t going to do additional things, that we would continue and really escalate the shareholder activity that we’d already been undertaking in the vote-nos against executive pay. What we’re implicitly suggesting is that we’re going to be campaigning harder against the re-election of incumbent directors if the board doesn’t make significant changes between now and next year’s annual meeting.
Further in the interview, SOC wants Activision Blizzard to fix the problems that led to the California DFEH lawsuit now, so that in the long term the changes guarantee investors’s growth. In order to do this there has to be a safe workplace. SOC also learned from the lawsuit docket how bad overtime crunch cycles are in the company.
SOC supports the idea of the entire gaming industry, including Activision Blizzard workers unionizing — as they are a union themselves. This is great news to ABK workers.
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