| Jessica Gonzalez | |
| Occupation: | Labor organizer |
| Employer: | CODE-CWA |
| Known For: | Labor organizing |
| Notable Works: | A Better ABK ABK Workers Alliance Game Workers Alliance |
Jessica Gonzalez (born 1992 or 1993)[1] is an American labor organizer working with CODE-CWA, the Communication Workers of America's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. She is known for her work organizing in the video game industry and founding A Better ABK, the worker advocacy group at Activision Blizzard, and co-founding ABK Workers Alliance, a solidarity union, and Game Workers Alliance, the Raven Software union.
See also: Activision Blizzard worker organization. Gonzalez joined Activision Blizzard (ABK) in 2015 as a quality assurance (QA) tester. She left the company for a few years to work for Boundless Entertainment, but returned to ABK in 2019 until leaving the company in 2021 due to what she alleged to be a hostile working environment.[2] [3] [4] She worked briefly for a financial tech company following her departure,[5] while working part-time as an organizer with CODE-CWA. She later joined CODE-CWA full-time.[6]
Gonzalez also alleged that in QA at ABK, testers were treated as "second-class citizens", which ABK denies. A former colleague told Axios that Gonzalez "was the spark that started the explosion", referring to the founding of A Better ABK,[7] which was founded in 2021 following a walkout in protest of the company's response to accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination.[8] Gonzalez and the worker organizers staged further walkouts during 2021 and 2022.[9]
Shortly after leaving ABK, Gonzalez, along with other A Better ABK organizers, started a strike fund on GoFundMe to help organizers take unpaid time off to participate in the group's walk-outs.[10]
In 2021, Gonzalez helped form ABK Workers' Alliance.[11]
In 2022, she and former colleague Josh Miller began a podcast on the streaming platform Twitch called Weekly Standup discussing worker's rights and unionization in tech.[12] Also in 2022, Gonzalez appealed the $18 million settlement Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's concurrent California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard lawsuit, which was struck down by the courts on March 22, 2022.[13]
In 2022, Gonzalez co-founded Game Workers Alliance (GWA), a union made up of QA testers at Raven Software, a Subsidiary of ABK.[14] GWA is the first labor union at a AAA games developer.[15] Also in 2022, she, along with 11 other current and former ABK employees, formed an anti-discrimination committee.[16]
Gonzalez lives in San Pedro, Los Angeles.