Amazing what can be done when legislators don’t actively hate their constituents
In case you ever wanted to see Neil Gaiman in a shirt that wasn’t black - with George RR Martin not working on The Winds of Winter and Nnedi Okorafor in Santa Fe…
More on his joining the picket line…
I think I have seen that live few times. He looked larger in real life.
In a lawsuit filed against Activision in 2021, California’s Civil Rights Department alleges that “women were subjected to constant sexual harassment, including groping, comments, and advances, and that the company’s executives and human resources personnel knew of the harassment and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the unlawful conduct, and instead retaliated against women who complained.” The complaint also accused Activision of having “fostered a sexist culture and paid women less than men, and assigned women to lower level jobs than men.” Last year, Activision filed a counterclaim against the Civil Rights Department, accusing it of ethical lapses in its investigation and of attempting to interfere with the separate EEOC investigation and $18 million settlement reached in September 2021.
The executive says he has been both humbled and outraged by what he considers malicious distortions about the company that he has taken to great heights over 32 years. He makes no apologies for Activision or its culture. He says that the company is preparing to release a slew of data drawn from the EEOC investigation that he hopes will combat the perception that Activision was run as a “frat house.”
For a company with 17,000 employees worldwide, Kotick asserts, Activision has had a relatively low level of harassment and assault complaints. Though he says he’ll release a transparency report that will provide exculpatory data from outside entities, he acknowledges that the stain left by the sweeping allegations will be hard to combat with pie charts and statistical tables.
“We’ve had every possible form of investigation done. And we did not have a systemic issue with harassment — ever. We didn’t have any of what were mischaracterizations reported in the media,” Kotick asserts. “But what we did have was a very aggressive labor movement working hard to try and destabilize the company.”
Kotick places the blame for most of Activision’s image problems on what he calls “outside forces” and labor activity around the company. The Communications Workers of America and Activision employees have filed a stream of complaints against the company with the National Labor Relations Board. Kotick believes labor organizers are influencing the state and federal investigations into harassment and gender discrimination claims, as well as the Activision employee walkouts that have been staged periodically since 2021.
Any CEO with a modicum of empathy or self-awareness would recognize that an “aggressive labor movement” within the company is a sign employees are beyond annoyed and are pissed off. Thinking of that as an external influence rather than a sign of toxic company culture from within is pure deflection.
Moreover, from what I’ve seen in companies large and small - if there is some harrassment and assault, few people outside the company know about it. In order for it to be publicly visible, it has to be widespread and pervasive before it is known outside the company.
God forbid they harm the equipment, but fuck the workers, right?
Police, etc. – it’s always about protecting the property over living beings.
More on the mini-rooms issue…
And here is from George “not writing winds of winter, but we’ll forgive him this time since it’s about the strike” RR Martin…
https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2023/05/08/writers-on-set/
Once again from.
“Artificial Intelligence: Agreement confirming that AI is not a person and that generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members.”
This is such a fucked up story, from the endangerment of the workers to the fact that this site will be bulldozed against the better judgment of academics and indigenous stakeholders.