Rockstar North has fired 31 employees from its Edinburgh studio, with those laid off being escorted off-site by security. While the company claims the workers breached confidentiality rules by sharing internal information on a private Discord server, workers and union representatives have alleged that Rockstar has again gotten itself involved with union-busting, a tale as old as time in the games industry.
The Rockstar North firings took place about two weeks ago, with 31 employees being laid off over what Take-Two has called “gross misconduct,” but what those affected have called union-busting. That case has been corroborated by People Make Games‘ investigation, as well as a series of renewed efforts to stand up for those affected.
At the helm of the fight for the affected employees is the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain), a grassroots union that fights for those in precarious industries, such as in the gig economy.
The games industry is one such case, with the industry completely lacking safeguards for workers, relying on malicious crunch culture and hierarchies of sexism and elitism, as has been demonstrated with many a horror story, such as those emerging from Bioware, Blizzard, Ubisoft, and many more.
In a statement on the IWGB website, president Alex Marshall said that the organisation is “confident that what we’ve seen here is plain and simple union busting” and that “Employers like Rockstar would do well to understand that private spaces such as trade union Discord servers have protections, and that their company’s contractual clauses do not supersede UK law.”
The IWGB is putting forward legal claims against Rockstar on the behalf of the fired workers.
Rockstar tried to pressure UK MPs away from digging deeper
In this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, where the head of the UK government takes questions from their fellow politicians, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer fielded a question about the subject.
The question was asked by Member of Parliament for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh Chris Murray (a member of the Labour Party, which Starmer leads), who asked “does the Prime Minister agree all companies regardless of profit size must follow UK employment law and all workers have the right to join a union?”
The PM agreed that the case was “deeply concerning,” and that the government’s ministers would look into the situation and keep Murray updated on the developments.
In a following interview with IGN, Murray claimed that his attempts to negotiate with Rockstar North (a company residing within his constituency) went far worse than expected. Murray claimed that him and his fellow MPs were “refused entry unless an NDA was signed, a request they eventually withdrew after it being made clear this would not be signed.”
Murray and his associates left the meeting without resolution, and without any further concrete evidence as to why the 31 employees were fired.
These allegations of intimidation and evasion have been greatly concerning to those that just want to see justice and clarity. While the upcoming GTA VI is set to light the industry up with blockbuster sales, it looks as if the game could be just another example of systemic worker abuse, something the comapany has long been criticised over, with Red Dead Redemption 2 being a key example.
To many, this situation makes it all the more imperative that video game workers, across all companies and sectors, band together and fight for more control, better conditions, and an end to cyclical abuse.
