Blizzard support studio workers drop union bid (updated)

One Activision Blizzard studio won’t form a union, at least not in the near future. The Communication Workers of America (CWA) says it’s withdrawing its petition for a union vote at Blizzard support studio Proletariat, which is currently working on World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. As Kotakunotes, a CWA spokesperson claims Proletariat chief Seth Sivak saw employees’ unionization move as a “personal attack” and held meetings that allegedly “demoralized and disempowered” the team enough to prevent a fair election.

The pro-union group, the Proletariat Workers Alliance, said in December that it had majority support. Activision Blizzard declined to willingly recognize the union, though, forcing an election through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It’s not clear how much support the vote has now, but Proletariat engineer Dustin Yost says in a statement that the union-busting meetings “took their toll.”

We’ve asked Activision Blizzard and the CWA for comment. There are no immediate indications the CWA plans to resubmit the petition or file a complaint with the NLRB over the alleged anti-union tactics. Yost says he still feels a union is the “best way” to get industry representation.

Staff at Activision Blizzard’s Albany studio and Raven Software successfully unionized last year despite accusations of anti-union tactics from the publisher. However, those campaigns were limited to quality assurance testers. Proletariat Workers Alliance hoped to unite the entire studio except for management, which was considerably more complex. According to an Axiossource, some teammates felt the unionization push was too quick and didn’t give them the time to understand the consequences.

This doesn’t rule out a union at Proletariat or other Activision Blizzard teams. With that said, it comes as workers across the tech space seek to unionize, including at gaming giants like Microsoft’s ZeniMax. Developers and testers don’t feel they’re getting fair working conditions, and they’re increasingly willing to speak out on the subject.

Update 1/24 4:44PM ET: The CWA reiterated its stance in a statement to Engadget. Blizzard said it “appreciate[d]” the decision to withdraw the petition, and maintained that it “welcomed” the opportunity for employees to vote.

Apple will audit its labor practices in the US after union-busting accusations

Apple has agreed to review its labor practices in the US after regulators and employees accused the company of union busting. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its annual shareholders meeting, Apple said it would carry ou…

SBF thought it was a good idea to start a Substack

Sam Bankman-Fried is in a world of trouble. He’s facing up to 115 years in prison if he’s convicted of federal fraud and conspiracy charges. And yet the embattled founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX — who has pleaded not guilty and is out on a $250 million bond while awaiting trial — figured it’d be a great idea to write about his perspective on the saga in a Substack newsletter.

In his first post, which is ostensibly about the collapse of FTX International, Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) claims that “I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away.” SBF notes that FTX US (which serves customers in America) “remains fully solvent and should be able to return all customers’ funds.” He added that FTX International still has billions of dollars in assets and that he is “dedicating nearly all of my personal assets to customers.” SBF, who once had a net worth of approximately $26.5 billion, said at the end of November that he had $100,000 in his bank account, though he pledged to give almost all of his personal shares in Robinhood to customers.

The post covers much of the same ground that SBF has gone over in the myriad interviews he gave between FTX’s collapse in November and his arrest last month. He discusses the multiple crypto market crashes in 2022 and a tweet from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao that sparked a run on FTX’s FTT token and prompted the implosion of his exchange. SBF also writes about how he was pressured to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for FTX. Meanwhile, he notes that many of the numbers he cites in the post are approximations, since he has been locked out of FTX’s systems by those overseeing its bankruptcy proceedings.

What’s more interesting is what SBF doesn’t address. He does not mention the fact that FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang and former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are cooperating with prosecutors.

SBF has continued to give interviews and tweet about the situation while he’s out on bail. That’s despite the complaint filed against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission citing his tweets and comments he made in an interview in early December. Perhaps this whole Substack thing will turn out to be a mistake too.

Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to federal fraud charges

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder and former CEO of crypto exchange FTX, has pleaded not guilty to federal wire fraud charges and other crimes. Per The New York Times, Bankman-Fried appeared before a Manhattan court on Tuesday, nearly two weeks …

Microsoft is now the home of the video game industry’s largest union

Quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Studios have voted in favor of forming a union with Communications Workers of America — and ZeniMax’s parent company, Microsoft, didn’t stand in the way. Microsoft formally recognized ZeniMax Workers United/CWA alongside today’s vote results, making this the largest union in the video game industry and the first US union at Microsoft overall.

About 300 ZeniMax staff members were involved in the unionization effort, which was brewing for months before going public in early December. This was around the time QA testers at another major video game studio, Blizzard Albany, voted to unionize with CWA. The Blizzard Albany union is the second at parent company Activision Blizzard, after QA staff at Raven Software voted to organize in May 2022.

The employees behind ZeniMax Workers United/CWA argue that the union will help put an end to sudden periods of crunch, make pay more equitable, and improve communication with management, among other workplace benefits. ZeniMax Studios specializes in online experiences and is responsible for Elder Scrolls Online. The studio was absorbed by Microsoft in March 2021 as part of the broader ZeniMax Media acquisition, a $7.5 billion deal that brought Bethesda and other prominent development houses under the Xbox banner.

A Microsoft spokesperson provided the following statement regarding the ZeniMax Studios vote: “In light of the results of the recent unionization vote, we recognize the Communications Workers of America as the bargaining representative for the Quality Assurance employees at ZeniMax. We look forward to engaging in good faith negotiations as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement.”

Microsoft is currently attempting to acquire — emphasis on attempting — Activision Blizzard, which would tie all of these unionization campaigns together. Activision Blizzard has actively tried to quell organization efforts, while Microsoft in June said it would respect all unionization efforts at Activision Blizzard. The ZeniMax vote was the first big test of Microsoft’s neutrality when facing internal unionization.

NLRB says Tesla violated the law by telling employees not to talk about pay

The National Labor Relations Board has accused Tesla of violating labor law by prohibiting employees in Orlando, Florida from talking about workplace matters. According to Bloomberg, NLRB’s Tampa regional director filed a complaint against the automaker in September for breaking the law when it told employees not to discuss their pay with other people and not to talk about the termination of another employee. In addition, based on the filing the news organization obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, Tesla management reportedly told employees “not to complain to higher level managers” about their working conditions. 

Tesla has had to face several complaints by the NLRB over the past years. In 2021, the agency found that the automaker had violated US labor laws by firing a union activist and threatening workers’ benefits. The NLRB ordered the company to rehire union activist Richard Ortiz and to remove all mentions of disciplinary action from his files. It also ordered Tesla chief Elon Musk to delete a tweet that the court had deemed a threat that employees would be giving up company-paid stock options if they join a union. The tweet in question is still live, and Tesla is appealing the NLRB’s ruling in court. 

An agency spokesperson told Bloomberg that a judge will hear the complaint filed by the Tampa regional director in February. As the publication notes, companies can still appeal the agency judges’ decision to NLRB members in Washington and then to federal court, so any corrective action may take years to happen.

North Korean hackers targeted nearly 1,000 South Korean foreign policy experts

South Korean authorities believe North Korean hackers, working for the government, have targeted at least 892 foreign policy experts in the country. The efforts focused on members of think tanks and academics, dating back to April. The attacks began with spear phishing emails, often claiming to be from figures in South Koreas political system. These usually included either links to fake sites or viruses as attachments. The ploy, while not particularly sophisticated, was enough to fool at least a handful of victims.

The result was that several prominent experts had their personal data stolen, email lists compromised (exposing more people to the hackers), and 13 companies (primarily online retailers) were victims of ransomware. Although police believe only 49 recipients actually handed credentials over to the fakes sites and only two companies paid the 2.5 million won ($1,980) ransom, it’s difficult to judge the full scale of the fallout.

It’s unclear what non-financial resources the North Korean hackers may have gained from this latest campaign. But it’s certain this will not be the last cyber attack on its souther neighbor. The county has previously targeted security researchers to discover unpatched vulnerabilities, and even used the tragedy on Halloween in Itaewon as a tool to target South Korean citizens. 

Cyber warfare has been a major focus of North Korea for years, even as it seeks to deter foreign militaries with more traditional methods, like building nuclear weapons. It has also been a major source of revenue for the country which is in perpetual financial crisis and largely cut off from the world’s markets. It’s estimated that North Korean hackers have stolen $1.72 billion worth of cryptocurrency since 2017. And it doesn’t appear that it’s letting the recent crypto crash scare it off, as the recent ransoms were also paid in BitCoin.

Though the hackers covered their tracks reasonably well, the targets, tactics and IP addresses have led police to believe this is the same group that hacked the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power in 2014. They also believe that the hackers will not cease their activity just because their efforts have been discovered. Authorities have urged people, especially those who work in sensitive areas like technology and government, to step up their security measures and be extra vigilant against fishing and human engineering attacks.

Two top executives plead guilty to fraud in FTX case

Top FTX executives close to Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, have pleaded guilty to fraud and are cooperating with prosecutors. The pair were convicted “in connection with their roles in the fraud that contributed to FTX’s collapse,” said Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York in a press conference.

Ellison, the former CEO of FTX sister company Alameda Research and ex-girlfriend of Bankman-Fried, pleaded guilty to seven counts and faces up to 110 years in prison. Former FTX co-founder Wang pleaded guilty to four counts and faces 50 years. Depending on the level of cooperation, however, they could receive lighter sentences. The pair also face civil fraud charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC). Both were released on $250,000 bonds.

The announcement was made as Bankman-Fried was being extradited from the Bahamas to New York, and add to his mounting legal woes. Wang’s lawyer Ilan Graff said that his client has “accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness,” according to The Washington Post. 

Despite their cooperation, the SEC didn’t mince words in laying out its case against Ellison and Wang. “Mr. Bankman-Fried, Ms. Ellison, and Mr. Wang were active participants in a scheme to conceal material information from FTX investors,” said SEC deputy director of enforcement, Sanjay Wadhwa. “By surreptitiously siphoning FTX’s customer funds onto the books of Alameda, defendants hid the very real risks that FTX’s investors and customers faced.”

Bankman-Fried, meanwhile, is accused of a long list of misdeeds by multiple agencies, including the SEC, Department of Justice and CFTC. Those include defrauding FTX investors and customers of more than $1.9 billion, multiple counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud investors by sharing misleading information and “surreptitiously” siphoning customer funds. The CFTC also alleges that Bankman-Fried and his cohorts “took hundreds of millions of dollars in poorly-documented ‘loans’ from Alameda,” which they then used to purchase real estate and make political donations.