Rockstar Games faces unfair dismissal tribunal

Former employees of Rockstar Games held a rally in Glasgow on Thursday morning, almost a year after their dismissals. More than 30 employees were dismissed by the Grand Theft Auto developer across the UK and Canada. The company stated the reason for the dismissals was the sharing of confidential company information. Twenty-three of these former employees are now involved in an employment tribunal, asserting they were unfairly dismissed because of their trade union activities. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is representing the former staff.

Rockstar Games has indicated it will vigorously contest the tribunal. The company has accused the former employees of violating its confidentiality rules by discussing sensitive information on a Discord server. Lawyers for the claimants are expected to argue that workers were unlawfully blacklisted and targeted for their union organising efforts.

Tribunal proceedings

The rally took place outside the Glasgow Tribunals centre, where the employment tribunal is being heard. Former employees carried banners and chanted, with some sharing personal accounts of their dismissals last October. Sarah Blackburn, who worked at Rockstar for nine years, described receiving a dismissal call while off sick, stating it "felt like a knife in my heart over and over and over again."

During the tribunal hearing on Thursday, evidence was presented from Robert Spampinato, the company’s vice president for human resources. Richard O’Keefe, representing the claimants, suggested that the dismissals were triggered by the company's discovery that the IWGB union was close to achieving the membership threshold for formal recognition. Mr O’Keefe presented evidence suggesting that Mr Spampinato instructed HR executive Charlie Kinloch to gather evidence of disparagement and breaches of information security from an employee known as AB, who was providing information from the Discord server.

Mr Spampinato responded that the information received led to a "conversation" and that he and others took "guidance" on subsequent actions, describing the Discord server as "unhinged". The tribunal heard that Mr Kinloch obtained access to the Discord server and began taking screenshots on October 10 last year. He found a joint letter to management being drafted on the forum concerning the company's decision to close a social channel on its Slack platform.

Mr O’Keefe questioned Mr Spampinato about a potential link between this information and an email sent on October 13 announcing the reinstatement of the Slack channel, suggesting it was an attempt to preempt the IWGB letter. The witness maintained the decision to reinstate the Slack channel was made before October 13 and was not influenced by the Discord server, citing feedback from the wider company. The exchange became tense when Mr Spampinato stated he could not recall specific details of discussions from a year prior. He told the tribunal, "I take offence to that comment. I am being as helpful as I can. I do not remember something that happened a year ago."

The tribunal continues before judge Lucy Wiseman.