By Steven Asarch
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After several difficult and controversial months at Riot Games, employees banded togetherMonday morning and walked out in protest. More than 100 current employees of the studio behind League of Legends are expected to walk away from their desks to make their voices heard, according to an organizer who spoke to Kotaku. Riot has said that it will not fire employees who take part in the walkout, according to the same Kotaku story.
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After an August 2018 report from Kotaku exposed a culture of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior, many current and former Riot employees started to speak up. Five former and current employees filed lawsuits against the company. Two were blocked with a motion from Riot Games, who claimed that these employees had forced arbitration clauses in their contract. These parts of the signed agreement meant that they could not put their case in front of a jury at a trial.
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Some at Riot Games objected to move and planned a walkout. In response, a blog was posted on the Riot website which spoke about the "ongoing public conversations around Riot's arbitration agreements." Riot will soon give all new employees a chance to "opt-out of mandatory arbitration for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims," the post said. Current employees at the company will still have a clause in their contract, but Riot will look to extending that to current employees.
Current employees at the company went to Twitter to share that they will be taking part in the walkout using #riotwalkout. Developers from other companies, gamers and those opposing Riot's treatment of their employees have been cheering them on from the Twitter sidelines.
(Update: 5/6 3:20 p.m. EST.) Here is Riot's statement about the walkout to Newsweek.
"We support Rioters making their voices heard today. We have asked all managers to make every accommodation to allow Rioters to participate during the 2-4pm window, including freeing up meeting times. We respect Rioters who choose to walkout today and will not tolerate retaliation of any kind as a result of participating (or not).
While we will not make a change to our policies while in active litigation, last Thursday we announced that we've made the call to pivot our approach. As soon as active litigation is resolved, we will give all new Rioters the choice to opt-out of mandatory arbitration for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims. At that time, we will also commit to have a firm answer on potentially expanding the scope and extending this opt-out to all Rioters. We are working diligently to resolve all active litigation so that we can quickly take steps toward a solution."
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