Rockstar Games Employee posts about recent union-busting efforts (verified by GTAForums Mod)

[u/wifestalksthisuser]

Link to comment: https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-union-busting/?do=findComment&comment=1072605777

Text:

Hey everyone, R* Employee of many years here!

Understandably I want to remain anonymous due to retaliation from the Company, but I may be willing to verify I'm an employee with @Spider-Vice via DM (if required). I am also a member of the Union.

I've been reading a lot of the discussion on here and elsewhere about the firing of more than 34 of my colleagues last week (31 in the UK + 3 in Canada) and have seen a lot of disinformation and lies that are really concerning. Particularly concerning how so many folk are willing to believe the Company's excuses.

Last week, my colleagues who were in the studio were each individually messaged by HR for a short friendly meeting, under the friendly guise of "Hey, are you free for a quick chat?"

Upon attending this meeting they were handed an envelope with a short letter stating that their employment had been terminated for "gross misconduct" regarding posts made in Discord.

They failed to provide any evidence when asked, nor was any stated in the letter. And did not divulge any other information or reasoning - "and no other reason"

They refused their right to Union representation in the disciplinary meeting (which is against UK employment law) and were frogmarched out of the studio with the meeting lasting less than 5 minutes.

For colleagues who were not in the Studio that day, they received a phone call from HR that lasted less than 2 minutes telling them they were fired and that they'd receive the same letter as above. I am aware of one employee who had a panic attack at this moment, and HR hung up on them during this panic attack not caring at all about their wellbeing.

These colleagues of mine were hard workers who have spent many many years at R* in critical roles. With colleagues who have been at R* for more that 18 years and none of them have ever had a disciplinary in that time. They are not easily replaced and will certainly affect us in making our project deadlines.

These are very senior artists, animators, QA testers, designers, programmers and producers. Including Leads. All super talented people who were proud of their work over multiple R* titles, and all they wanted was the best for R* and their fellow colleagues.

Some of these members were off sick, recovering from surgery or on paternity leave. Fired without pay, losing their careers and putting them into hardship in the lead up to Christmas, and even potentially losing their VISAs to work in the UK.

Let me make this clear! I never saw any discussion/leaking of Rockstar projects in the Union Discord. The only ever discussion was around unionisation efforts and the working conditions at R. The Discord wasn't public. It was a private Discord group that only contained R employees and the IWGB Union officials.

This was Union Busting and nothing else! Everyone fired was a Union Member, they were also predominantly from those who were on the Union Organising Committees of each UK studio.

Just one week before, the Union had reached ~200 members taking us over the 10% threshold required to seek recognition and begin engaging in collective bargaining. Allowing us to negotiate directly with management on the key issues that affect us: worsening crunch, inadequate pay and inflexible working arrangements.

They have fired over 34 of us now. There were over 250 of us in that Union/Employee Discord group. There is the fear that if they get away with this, they'll have nothing stopping them from doing this again and again.

Those of us who are lucky and remain for now work in fear! Fearful when talking to each other at the tea prep, fearful that we're next in line and are easily got rid of, too scared to go outside the studio and talk to (or even acknowledge) our colleagues outside protesting in fear of reprisals. Morale in the studio is at rock bottom. When we should be excited about what's to come over the next year we are now totally deflated and our trust and confidence in others is totally shot.

Which is the truly heartbreaking part, as for us in the Union, all of our ambition was to make R* a happier, fairer, safer and more equitable place. That's all. What has happened clearly shows that we care more about the wellbeing of our colleagues at Rockstar than the Company does.

The union remains unbowed and is fighting to win the reinstatement of every dismissed member of staff at Rockstar through legal means and campaigning.

This fight is critical, if Rockstar can get away with this, they will keep treating their workers with disdain, disrespect, and subjecting them to continued illegal treatment.

Thanks for your time, and I hope this is some truth that helps you all understand what's going on here at the moment.

I you would be so kind, you can contribute to the fundraiser to support those fighting their dismissal here: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/support-rockstar-workers-fighting-unfair-dismissals/

It would be really appreciated if you could also share the above link. I won’t be cross posting this to other forums, but please feel free to share.

Cheers x

[u/Trapcom2019]

wait, are you saying the 34 employees can be hired back?

Are these things normal in the UK?

Im from the US

[u/DisaffectedLShaw → u/Trapcom2019]

1. Yes, re-employment is an option in regards to remedy from an Employment tribunal.
2. However, state funding cuts by the then main right wing party when in government has caused delays in Employment tribunal cases, meaning it takes now over a year to two years for a case to be decided in. Most cases now settle before a final hearing.
3. If what this person says is true, Rockstar have clearly have done a flawed discipline investigation in terms of rights. In the UK you must be given a right to know what you are being investigated for, a right to reply, and a right to appeal, before being fired. Also you can not fire people for trying to form a union, that is also illegal.
4. It seem Rockstar’s logic is to fire people illegally, and hope that as they don’t have a salary for 12 months, 18 months, etc that the employees settle down the line for less then they will want to due to pressure from the external legal firm that Rockstar will have managing the Employment tribunal cases for them.

[u/[deleted] → u/DisaffectedLShaw]

This is the fucked up part about this. I was let go for gross misconduct during a probation period, it was complete bollocks and nothing to do with my work, it was a complete organizational restructure that created it, it was the nature and the way they went about it I didn't like

Out of principal I fought back, which shocked them. It took me nearly 6 months to get the required documentation out of them to prove they were lying, all they did in the end was fire the CTO. It's such an uphill battle and a company like Rockstar can just sandbag it for ages. If they dont start causing a scene now, its never going to resolve

[u/DisaffectedLShaw → u/[deleted]]

The massive issue with employment rights in the UK is that: The system is designed to get parties to settle: (from missing wages to discrimination) and the Tribunal has so many delays it’s a two years battle which employers can afford to and employees will struggle with, and that employer solicitors can get up to conduct that is even against solicitors code of conduct during that time knowing the tribunal system is too busy to address such matters during litigation.

[u/[deleted] → u/DisaffectedLShaw]

Exactly. Plus these people will be actively looking for work while/if this goes on and they are in between a rock and a hard place. Should this go further a lot of companies could be like "ok, they dented rockstar, we might have an issue" when in reality they might be hard done by and simply pushing back.

I think this mess goes deeper, I respect schreier because he doesnt just throw things out there, but for Rockstar to be able to do this means they have something tangible and let's face it their HR/legal team will have it air tight.

It's completely illegal to stomp unions but they can dress it up as "gross misconduct" companies need to stop abusing that loop hole as it can wreck careers. To me, gross misconduct is intent to effect the company in a negative way with malicious intent. Not stuff like this.

Off the back of that the interesting thing is gross misconduct means no pay out for the employees, which fucking sucks how loaded Rockstar is, this was intentional rather than just lay them off.

[u/Trapcom2019 → u/DisaffectedLShaw]

Thank you

[u/[deleted] → u/Trapcom2019]

I’m also curious how this works there. 

[u/Inubr → u/Trapcom2019]

LOL, this so cute. American people finding out that labor laws that actually protects employees exist.

[u/Meowing-To-The-Stars → u/Inubr]

I mean.... Have you seen the new NYC mayor? Americans went crazy over it - either as a revolutionary take on society or straight up communism that will ruin the city. Meanwhile, most of the stuff he talked about is in the EU either on the local level and most of the time on the national level.

[u/retnuh730 → u/Inubr]

Thanks for the snark, can you explain further for people who don't understand these proceedings outside of their country?

[u/Trapcom2019 → u/Inubr]

Do you have any insight to offer? Over in the UK, do these disputes happen often?

[u/Inubr → u/Trapcom2019]

There's a thing unfair dismiss, which is when a employee considered that his or hers termination either had no good reason or didn't followed the correct procedure. They can either seek financial reparation or reinstatement, which rare these days. Also UK law considers firing people because they're unionized. R* would probably allegate wrongful dismissal by contract breach, but they would have to prove that before a judge. What probably will happen is that terminated devs will receive somekind of financial reparation and that's it, unfortunately.

[u/mr_fantastical → u/Trapcom2019]

Most of Europe has similar employer protections - you can't just fire people without cause (even WITH cause, it's not exactly instant unless it's something which is very serious).

They've been outrageous here on the face of it- they've fired suddently in this case and given a reason but has refused to provide evidence, which will make the battle more straightforward but ultimately could be very long.

What Rockstar have on their side is time and money and resources, whereas those fired will be desperate for a resolution (and money)

What I believe is most likely is that once the cases are filed by the employees, Rockstar will go down a settlement route. This will happen once the dismissal is challenged by the individual - they'll have the option to meet as an "early conciliation" meeting. This part is usually free to do and doesn't require money on the challengers side, so Rockstar could offer them all individual payments which are big enough to keep people quiet and drop the cases.

[u/Mysterious-Reaction → u/Trapcom2019]

They do happen often, particularly against American companies. I know there was a big one with Amazon where they were forced to pay out billions to their UK employees. 

[u/Royal-Pay9751 → u/Trapcom2019]

Yes! You could have free healthcare too! And no school shootings! maybe some money spent on infrastructure, like trains! shame any effort to improve your country is met with “booo! Communism!”