Activision Blizzard has been sued again.
Last week, James Reid Venable, a 57-year-old former employee, sued Activision Blizzard, alleging that the latter "discriminated against older white male employees" and that he was one of the victims.
Venable said that at a leadership meeting, then-Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Caldek complained that "there are too many old white employees in the company." Soon after, two white executives over the age of 50 left the company, one of whom was Venable's immediate boss.
Before leaving, the boss had recommended Venable to take his place. Instead, the company didn't take the suggestion and promoted another, younger, non-white employee to take his place.
This incident made Venable quite unhappy. He said that after the new leader took office, he often criticized his work, which affected his performance. At that time, a female colleague in the same department also protested to the human resources department and the new leadership about "white male privilege", which further affected Venable's personal evaluation. In the end, he achieved the lowest performance increase in his eight years of employment.
Naturally, Venable has also tried to defend its rights internally, but the results have not been satisfactory. In response to some of the rumors, he filed a complaint with the human resources department, accusing the company of failing to protect its basic rights, such as protecting employees from discrimination and defamatory allegations.
He stressed that he was probably the first to raise the issue of ageism at the time, and that if the company did not intervene, it could have a bigger and more serious impact in the future. However, until he left in August 2023, the human resources department maintained a neglectful attitude and never gave a reasonable response, and even among the people who left at the same time as him, there were six other elderly male employees between the ages of 47 and 64.
In the lawsuit, Venable also adduced evidence of the list of vacant positions in Activision Blizzard's relevant departments, arguing that the reason for the layoffs was not the need for restructuring, but the desire to seek more benefits for the company by firing older, higher-paid employees.
In response to these issues, Venable demanded that Activision Blizzard compensate it for the loss of income, reputation, and morality, compensate for its negative impact on career development, and pay for the costs associated with the lawsuit. So far, Activision officials have not responded to the lawsuit of "discrimination against older white people".
Prior to this incident, Activision Blizzard had been sued by the California Department for Civil Rights and the Equal Employment Commission for discrimination. At the time, 20 percent of the company's employees were women, and there was a lack of female executives, according to the lawsuit. Activision Blizzard's female employees are harder to promote, have poorer pay benefits and are more likely to be fired than their male counterparts.
The company also throws some office parties occasionally. During this period, some male employees consumed a lot of alcoholic beverages and verbally attacked women or behaved inappropriately. In some specific cases, some female employees have also been disseminated nude photos, and even their personal safety has been affected.
It wasn't until December that Activision Blizzard settled with the California Department for Civil Rights over lawsuits involving gender discrimination and sexual harassment and paid $55 million in damages.