Employees and Shareholders Call for Activision Blizzard CEO to Resign

Employees and shareholders are pushing for the resignation of Activision Blizzard president Bobby Kotick. That follows an article earlier this week that Kotick had known and participated in a culture of discrimination and harassment within the company for years.

The employees, united in ABK Workers Alliance, held a walkout at the company. People who work from home also stopped working to reinforce the protest. The facility in the city of Irvine in the US state of California involved 150 employees who had gone out in protest against the director.

In addition, shareholders are now also calling for the director to be replaced. This is done under the leadership of SOC Investment Group. They want the entire board, including Kotick, to leave by the end of this year. The board said it still supports the CEO. It is unclear whether the call has the support of enough shareholders. This week it came out that Kotick had known for years about discrimination and sexual harassment within his company and was actively participating in it himself.

It has now become clear at subsidiary Blizzard that co-directors Mike Ybarra and Jen Oneal were paid unequally. Oneal has said they were only offered an offer to be paid the same amount after she submitted her resignation, IGN reports. Ybarra and Oneal had previously made requests for equal pay, but they were rejected. Why is unknown. They were paid unequally because they had even older contracts and held different positions. Oneal announced earlier this month to step down as co-director after just three months.