Microsoft and unions

Historic union drives

A small group of 18 agency contractors at TaxSaver software declared itself the "negotiating unit" in April 1999 and became union-dues paying members of Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, affiliated to CWA.

Under joint employment law, their bargaining unit would have to be recognized by both Microsoft and TaxSaver which neither did. Despite the formal lack of collective bargaining, the TaxSaver unit experienced wage increases. A year later, Microsoft switched to H&R Block, resulting in a loss of jobs for the TaxSaver unit.[8]

38 software testers who were contracted by Lionbridge formed the union "Temporary Workers Alliance" union in 2014. Microsoft explicitly did not bargain with them, but they instructed Lionbridge to provide at least 3 weeks of vacation for all contractors.[9] In 2016, Lionbridge announced layoffs, two months after the union ratified its first collective agreement. As part of the negotiations, the union had agreed to drop a joint employer lawsuit between them, Lionbridge and Microsoft.[10]

Activision Blizzard

In May 2022, Quality Assurance (QA) testers of Activision Blizzard subsidiary Raven Software went public as "Game Workers Alliance" (GWA) with the support of Campaign to Organize Digital Employees-CWA.[11] GWA voted to unionize (19–2), which the National Labor Relations Board certified afterwards.[12][13]

Following the Raven QA team's successful unionization, the 20-member QA team of Blizzard Albany announced a unionization drive in July 2022 as GWA Albany.[14] The vote passed (14–0), forming the second union at an Activision Blizzard subsidiary.[15]

On March 8, 2024, 600 QA testers at 3 Activision studios in Austin, Texas, Eden Prairie, Minnesota and El Segundo, California formed the union "Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA" and voted to unionize (390–8) in favor, making it the largest video game union in the United States.[16][17]

In June 2024, an unfair labor practice was filed against Lionbridge by CWA alleging that the company illegally terminated the employment of 160 Activision software testers in Boise, Idaho, in retaliation for exercising their right to participate in concerted union activities. As part of the layoff, CWA also alleges that workers were required to sign an overly broad confidentiality agreement and an illegal waiver of certain rights protected by the National Labor Relations Act.[18]

A month later, 500 artists, designers, engineers, producers, and quality assurance testers who work on World of Warcraft voted to unionize. This is the second "wall to wall" union (following Bethesda Game Studios) to represents all employees in a Microsoft bargaining unit, regardless of their job title.[19] The same day, 60 QA testers at Blizzard's Austin office, who work on various games including Diablo 4 and Hearthstone, also voted to unionize and formed the union "Texas Blizzard QA United-CWA".[20]

On March 27, 2025, user-researchers launched "Activision User Research Union-CWA" the first union for UX workers.[21] In May 2025, developers who work on the Overwatch franchise launched "Overwatch Gamemakers Guild-CWA" after a super-majority of developers signed union authorization cards.[6] In August 2025, the team of developers working on the Diablo franchise also unionized with CWA.[22] In October 2025, more than 100 developers who work on the games Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble unionized with CWA, approximately a week after 400 workers across Blizzard's platform and technology department also voted to unionize with CWA.[23][24]

ZeniMax

300 QA testers at ZeniMax Online Studios voted to unionize as "ZeniMax Workers United-CWA" in January 2023. The QA testers review video games like Elder Scrolls Online. Among the issues they wish to improve are equitable pay, workplace communication and ending crunch time.[25] ZeniMax QA testers at the Texas and Maryland studios initiated a one-day strike on November 13, 2024, in response to the shift from remote-work to return-to-office policy and Microsoft's reliance on outsourcing.[26] In May 2025, following two years of negotiations, the ZeniMax QA testers union reached a contract agreement with Microsoft, guaranteeing wage and salary minimums, protections against arbitrary dismissal, grievance procedures, and a crediting policy for QA workers.[27] 461 other employees also involved with Elder Scrolls Online, including designers, engineers, graphics artists and developers also at ZeniMax Online Studios, unionized as "ZOS United-CWA" in December.[28]

241 US employees at Bethesda Game Studios unionized as "OneBGS" on July 20, 2024. Its three studios are located in Austin/Dallas, Texas and Rockville, Maryland.[29] The bargaining unit includes artists, developers, and engineers; unlike its parent company ZeniMax, which exclusively represented QA testers at the time.[30][31] The fourth studio in Montreal, Canada was certified in August, with the support of Communications Workers of America Canada. This marks the first instance of "wall-to-wall" unions within Microsoft bargaining units.[30]

In December 2025, 165 workers at id Software formed a "wall-to-wall" union with the CWA, which was recognized by Microsoft in line with its 2022 labor neutrality agreement with the CWA.[32]

Military contracts

Employees criticized Microsoft's bid of the JEDI cloud computing contracts in 2018. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested the company's war profiteering from a $480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army.[33]

ICE contract

100s of Microsoft employees protested their employers government contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in June 2018.[34]

GitHub (subsidiary of Microsoft) had a $200,000 contract with ICE for the use of their on-site product GitHub Enterprise Server. This contract was renewed in 2019, despite internal opposition from many GitHub employees. In an email sent to employees, later posted to the GitHub blog on October 9, 2019, CEO Nat Friedman stated "The revenue from the purchase is less than $200,000 and not financially material for our company." He announced that GitHub had pledged to donate $500,000 to "nonprofit groups supporting immigrant communities targeted by the current administration."[35] In response, at least 150 GitHub employees signed an open letter re-stating their opposition to the contract, and denouncing alleged human rights abuses by ICE. As of November 13, 2019, five workers had resigned over the contract.[36][37][38]

The ICE contract dispute came into focus again in June 2020 due to the company's decision to abandon "master/slave" branch terminology, spurred by the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter movement.[39] Detractors of GitHub describe the branch renaming to be a form of performative activism and have urged GitHub to cancel their ICE contract instead.[40] An open letter from members of the open source community was shared on GitHub in December 2019, demanding that the company drop its contract with ICE and provide more transparency into how they conduct business and partnerships. The letter has been signed by more than 700 people.[41]

996.ICU

On March 26, 2019, Chinese tech workers launched a public GitHub (owned by Microsoft) repository "996.ICU" protesting Chinese companies that have 996 working hour culture. "996.ICU" references 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, ending up in the intensive care unit. In less than a week, over 200,000 users "starred" or liked the repository.[42] This repository has been described as the largest display of solidarity among tech workers.[43] A month later, Microsoft employees launched another GitHub repository in support of 996.ICU, which they said was threatened by censorship in China and asked Microsoft not to censor the original repository.[44]