Olivia Munn: Nursing Activision-Blizzard employees say their breast milk kept getting stolen

Activision-Blizzard employees have made fresh claims of more disturbing details that they say went on behind closed doors at the gaming publisher, including instances of breast milk being stolen.
Blizzard has found itself in the midst of lawsuits, scandals, and demands for CEO Bobby Kotick to step down over a series of accusations about workplace practices.
Most recently, a female employee has claimed that she was demoted for reporting sexual harassment, leading to Twitch star Pokimane encouraging streamers to stop playing Blizzard games during their broadcasts.
Now, employees who were breastfeeding have claimed their needs were ‘neglected’, and alleging that they had to put up with unsanitary conditions.

If you’ve ever wanted a prime example of discrimination at ABK, this is it. This kind of negligence towards breastfeeding workers is criminal anywhere else, but it happened daily at Blizzard. Accommodating shouldn’t be an afterthought. We can and should do better by our workers pic.twitter.com/ThXf5DI04z

— Jessica Gonzalez 💙 #WeAreRaven (@BlizzJess) December 8, 2021

Blizzard accused of abusing breastfeeding parents

A series of tweets by Activision-Blizzard activist Jessica Gonzalez along with two other current and former employees revealed the severity of the issues mothers allegedly faced.
In screenshots from a Slack channel, it was alleged that chairs in a breastfeeding room rocked backwards and had wood tables with caked up milk. Additionally, with only two outlets, it was said to be fire hazard.
It is also claimed that refrigerators needed to be padlocked because other employees would use them to keep beer in and even steal breast milk.

One day, I went to retrieve my pumped supply at the end of the day and it was gone.

There were no other mothers in the building, & very few women at all in either QA or CS at the time.
All the other items I had seen earlier were still in the fridge. They were dated and labeled.
— 💙 Stephanie Krutsick #ABetterABK 💙 (@skrutsick) December 9, 2021

Employees allege breastmilk theft

“There was no fridge in the room, so I had to label and carry my breastmilk out and store it in the breakroom fridge. It was very clearly breastmilk, in baggies with a baby’s face on it,” Former Blizzard producer Stephanie Krutsick corroborated the claims. “One day, I went to retrieve my pumped supply at the end of the day and it was gone.”
“Someone had either taken my bags and tossed them, or stolen them for some creepy reason,” she added, noting how they never found out who did it.

After bringing this up in today’s chat, today, facilities swiftly removed the tables. What I’m tired of, is escalating things, HR says they “get handled” and then nothing happens, now I have to be unprofessional and leverage groups, and now social media for action to be taken.

— Stephanie Lyon Peters (@Rhyvver) December 9, 2021

Current employee Stephanie Lyon Peters had stated that the tables were only removed on December 8 despite concerns going on for years.
As allegations continue to be made about the state of working at Activision-Blizzard, past and present, come to light, increased scrutiny is placed on what the publisher’s response will be.

Olivia Munn – Magic Mike