Activision Blizzard shareholders vote in favor of public report on workplace discrimination

Activision Blizzard held its annual meeting today, giving shareholders the opportunity to vote on various issues. Naturally, a significant theme in the meeting was the ongoing controversy surrounding the company’s toxic workplace and the failures of leadership in addressing it. Shareholders had the chance to approve the election of Activision Blizzard’s new board of directors and to vote on whether to approve the executive compensation packages. Perhaps most interestingly, they could also vote on whether to act on a proposal from the New York State Comptroller to publish a public report on the company’s efforts to combat discrimination and harassment in its workplace.

This latter vote actually passed, as reported by The Washington Post’s Shannon Liao, with 67% in favor. The proposal, though non-binding, will nevertheless push Activision Blizzard to share “compensation data, the company’s total number of sexual harassment settlements, its progress around more quickly resolving harassment and abuse complaints, and total pending complaints,” and possibly more. It’s a surprising move from a company that just last week released the results of an internal investigation that, conveniently, found no fault with the response of senior executives to the allegations of harassment and discrimination within the company.

For many of the issues at stake, though, the response was as expected for those with a literal vested interest in the company. The board of directors was approved, despite the efforts of SOC Investment Group which had encouraged shareholders not to re-elect top company executives like Bobby Kotick, Brian Kelly, and Robert Morgado.

Similarly, the compensation packages were voted through with 88% voting in favor. A proposal to add an employee representative to the board — something endorsed by recently-unionized Raven Software employees — was thoroughly canned, with just 5% of the vote, and the meeting ended after around 20 minutes.