Two weeks after Grand Theft Auto 6’s Netflix reveal, and only a couple of months before the game’s meteoric release, Rockstar Games has an employment tribunal to fight. This week, the final hearing in Rockstar vs. the 31 fired Rockstar North employees begins.
Here, Rockstar has to finally face the allegations it “unlawfully” fired those 31 employees and “blacklisted” them for being a part of a union – allegations levelled at it by the union the employees belonged to: the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain. Rockstar tried to have these claims thrown out earlier this year but the employment tribunal ruled against it.
The final hearing is a long process. It begins Thursday, 10th September but runs through to 16th October – just over a month before GTA 6 arrives. The IWGB seeks, on the workers’ behalf, either reinstatement or compensation, “as well as a finding from the tribunal that their dismissals were unfair”, the IWGB said in a press release.
“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,” said former Rockstar employee Jason Lewis. “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.”
Rockstar fired 34 employees in October last year – 31 of those employees at Rockstar North in Scotland – for what it alleged was “gross misconduct”. Rockstar said the employees were breaching confidentiality agreements by talking about the company in a private IWGB Discord channel. But the employees – speaking to our friends at People Make Games, who have covered and continue to cover this topic extensively – maintain they were discussing salaries and HR issues related to employment. The sorts of things that would be discussed in a union-related Discord channel.
These 31 Rockstar North employees were fired with immediate effect and escorted from the building. One Australian employee was reportedly forced to return to Australia after Rockstar withdrew his work visa and reported him to the Home Office, the IWGB claimed. This all resulted in widespread media coverage and protests, resulting in the matter being raised in UK Parliament and being commented upon by then Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“It’s a deeply concerning case,” Starmer said. “Every worker has the right to join a trade union and we’re determined to strengthen workers rights and ensure they don’t face unfair consequences for being part of a union.”
Ahead of this week’s final tribunal hearing, IWGB president Alex Marshall said: “We believe Rockstar has tried to get away with Grand Theft Employment Rights. After a year of fighting to get answers, we hope this tribunal will finally back them into a corner and bring the truth to light.”
This is not the first time Rockstar or its parent company Take-Two has taken issue with Discord. Indeed, Take-Two is currently legally trying to force private user information out of Discord relating to the recent leaks of GTA 6 gameplay footage.
As a result of the union-related firings, a Rockstar Game Workers Union has sprung up and continues to grow in size. The Rockstar Game Workers Union has made several other allegations against the company relating to enforcing crunch, weaponising bonus payments, and failing to address gender-based pay inequality.
