GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games will today appear before an employment tribunal to face allegations from a union that it unlawfully fired 31 workers in October last year.
The hearing, which kicks off at Glasgow Employment Tribunal this morning, will air allegations made by the Independent Workers of Great Britain union (IWGB) — allegations Rockstar Games strongly denies. The IWGB will claim that the staff, who were all working on GTA 6, were unlawfully blacklisted and targeted for their union activities, and that the manner in which they were dismissed was also unlawful because, the union claims, it came without disciplinary process or right of appeal.
Rockstar has insisted the employees it fired were dismissed because they leaked GTA 6 game features in Discord, not because they were trying to unionize. 34 members of staff at Rockstar were dismissed — 31 in the UK and three in Canada — sparking protests outside the office of Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland, and parent company Take-Two in London.
In a new statement issued to IGN, a spokesperson for Rockstar Games insisted the studio was ready to defend itself from the claims. The statement is below:
“Rockstar Games' position has been clear and consistent throughout. Individuals across the UK and Canada were dismissed for gross misconduct following the sharing of confidential company information, not because of alleged trade union membership or activity. We reject the claims and will defend them vigorously before the tribunal.”
The hearing will run until October 16, a month before GTA 6 comes out. The workers want reinstatement or, failing that, compensation, as well as a finding from the tribunal that their dismissals were unfair. The IWGB alleges that on the day of the dismissals, employees were called into meetings, told they were being fired with immediate effect and escorted from the building. Workers who were not at the office allege they were informed during phone calls lasting around two minutes before being locked out of their work accounts. The IWGB also alleges that one of the dismissed workers, Will Mesilane, had to leave the UK and return to Australia after Rockstar withdrew his work visa and reported him to the Home Office, without giving him a chance to appeal.
Jason Lewis, former Rockstar employee and IWGB Union member, commented: “For almost a year, the truth about what happened to us has been buried by Rockstar and surrounded by speculation. Now we finally get the chance to put it on the record. None of us imagined that talking to each other about our working conditions would turn our lives upside down and catapult us into the centre of a global media storm. As the world prepares for the release of GTA 6, we are reliving the heartbreak of being thrown out of a project we poured so much of our lives into. We lost our jobs, our income, our community and the chance to see the game through to release after spending years helping to build it. It was devastating.
“We have fought tooth and nail to get to this point, not just to be able to win justice for ourselves, but to draw a line in the sand for any employer that thinks it can attack workers for unionising. It has been an emotional journey and it is not over yet, but we can now see the finish line, and justice at last feels within reach.”
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/gta-6-developer-rockstar-says-it-will-defend-itself-vigorously-from-union-claims-as-employment-tribunal-over-the-firing-of-31-workers-gets-underway
