International grassroots organization, Game Workers Unite, has called for Activision Blizzard‘s Chief Executive Officer to be fired for “pocketing millions while laying off 800 workers.”
At the time of this writing, the petition demanding the firing of Bobby Kotick has over 3,000 signatures. The campaign has been trending on Twitter this weekend under the hashtag #FireBobbyKotick.
“Upending 800 workers’ lives while raking in millions in bonuses for you and your c-suite buddies isn’t leadership, it’s theft,” wrote GWU. “We, the workers of Activision and their friends, have had enough.”
In a series of tweets, the organization claimed that the workers who have been made redundant are far more valuable than Kotick, who has been earning $30 million per annum. “That massive income doesn’t come from nowhere,” added GWU while suggesting that Kotick built his wealth using “stolen wages.”
The twitter thread lamenting Activision Blizzard’s move also pointed out that Kotick awarded Chief Financial Officer, Dennis Durkin, a $15 million bonus simply for changing his job title.
“[The late Satoru] Iwata, as CEO of Nintendo, cut his own pay during times of trouble to ensure no employees would lose their jobs,” GWU continued. “And Activision saw record profits this year! They have no excuse.”
The organization called Kotick’s salary “obscene,” and said that it was “disgusting” to hear him boast about record revenues last week.
Soon after the announcement of layoffs, Activision Blizzard’s shares jumped by as much as nine percent, indicating that the company’s cost-cutting measures were positively received by investors and shareholders.
You can check out the petition at coworker.org.
[Source: Game Workers Unite (Twitter)]
