An employment tribunal in the UK has ruled against striking blacklisting claims levied against Rockstar Games by staff the GTA 6 studio abruptly fired last year from ongoing legal proceedings between the two sides. The staff were let go in autumn last year, with Rockstar subsequently claiming that they were fired due to the leaking of “confidential information” via a public forum. The IWGB Game Workers Union, representing the ousted workers, have accused Rockstar of union busting over the firings.
As reported by Game Developer, the preliminary tribunal decision will allow the fired staff to levy the blacklisting claims against Rockstar during the final trial in the legal dispute.
In an employment law context, the practice of blacklisting trade unionists was defined by the UK government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in 2010 as involving “the systematic compilation of information on individual trade unionists and their use by employers and recruiters to discriminate against those individuals because of their trade union membership or involvement in trade union activity”. Union busting, to put it bluntly. So, the IWGB will be able to bring their allegations along those lines against Rockstar during the trial.
“Our case will now be heard in full and put to the test as it should be,” Ellie Dunstan, one of the fired Rockstar workers said of the tribunal’s ruling. “The world will get to see for itself the evidence as to what happened last October.”
“The tribunal has refused to let Rockstar off the hook, finding that serious factual questions remain about how these workers were identified, listed and dismissed – questions that must now be tested at a full hearing,” added IWGB branch chair Spring McParlin-Jones. “From the moment employees were escorted from their buildings without warning, and throughout every subsequent stage of the legal proceedings, Rockstar has attempted to avoid accountability—denying workers a fair hearing, failing to engage with basic evidence requests, and now attempting to limit scrutiny of the allegations brought against them.”
Earlier this year, the fired staff weren’t granted interim relief which would have seen them be put back on Rockstar’s payroll and have any cancelled work visas reinstated while the case rumbled through the various tribunals and courts. The final trial of the legal wranglings is set to run from September 10th to October 15th.
