Former Rockstar Games staff hold rally outside employment tribunal
One ex-employee said being sacked over the phone while they were off sick ‘felt like a knife in my heart’.
Former Rockstar Games employees have held a rally in Glasgow, almost a year to the day since they were sacked because of what they claim were their attempts to organise a union.
More than 30 people were dismissed by the Grand Theft Auto developer across the UK and Canada, over what the company said was “the sharing of confidential company information”.
Twenty-three of them are taking part in an employment tribunal, claiming they were unfairly dismissed for trade union activities.
They are being represented by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB).
Rockstar has said it will vigorously contest the tribunal and accused the former employees of breaching the company’s confidentiality rules by discussing sensitive information on a Discord server.
Lawyers for the claimants are expected to allege that workers were unlawfully blacklisted and targeted for their union activities.
A rally was held on Thursday morning outside the Glasgow Tribunals centre, where the employees’ case against the company is being heard.
Attendees waved banners and chanted, and some of the former employees gave speeches recalling the moment last October they were told they were being sacked.
Sarah Blackburn, who had worked at Rockstar for nine years, said: “I got a call on October 30 from a random mobile number about two hours after messaging in sick, which turned out to be Rockstar North HR under the pretence of a quick chat.
“That chat turned into my immediate dismissal with no warning, no process, no clear answers to what I was alleged to have done, and without being informed of things like my right to accompaniment.”
She added: “It felt like a knife in my heart over and over and over again, and I couldn’t stop crying for about a week.”
Another former employee, Branimira Yordanova, said: “Almost 12 months ago, management and Rockstar decided to dismiss me and 33 of my colleagues.
“You took away our jobs. You ripped us from our teams. You pushed some of us out of this country.
“What should have been a monumental career achievement for all of us, you turned into something closer to a nightmare.”
On Thursday, the tribunal continued hearing evidence from Robert Spampinato, the company’s vice president for human resources.
Richard O’Keefe, representing the claimants, put it to him the “trigger” for the sackings had been the company’s discovery that the IWGB union was “extremely close” to meeting the membership threshold that would require formal recognition by the company.
He said this information had come on October 7 2025 from an employee referred to as AB, who had been passing information about the Discord server to HR executive Charlie Kinloch since 2024.
The lawyer cited Mr Kinloch’s evidence that when he told Mr Spampinato about this, Mr Spampinato had instructed him to “ask AB to gather evidence of disparagement, breaches of information security, and of ex-employees being in the server”.
Mr Spampinato responded that the information passed by AB had led to a “conversation” involving a number of people, and that he and others had taken “guidance” on what to do next.
He added: “That was when we started getting a clearer picture of just how unhinged that Discord server was.”
The tribunal heard that, on October 10 last year, Mr Kinloch obtained his own log-in for the Discord server from the company’s information security head Abid Ansari, and that he began taking screenshots of posts himself.
During these visits he found a joint letter to management was being drafted on the forum, regarding the company’s recent decision to close the social channel on its Slack platform.
Mr Spampinato was asked about whether there was a relationship between this information, and an email he sent on October 13 announcing the reinstatement of the Slack channel, with Mr O’Keefe putting it to him he had been trying to “get ahead” of the IWGB letter.
The witness insisted that decision had been made prior to October 13 and was not shaped by the Discord server, saying there had been feedback about the policy from the wider company.
The witness was also asked about a Slack message from Mr Ansari on October 13 in which he said their access to the Discord server will be “put on hold” in light of their “changed stance”.
They did not access the server again until October 24 – a full 11 days later.
When asked what “changed stance” was a reference to, Mr Spampinato said “he could be talking about a number of different things”.
Mr O’Keefe put it to him that meant they had decided to “watch and wait” to see what impact the reversal of the Slack policy would have, and that that “must have been” an instruction from Mr Spampinato himself.
The exchange became heated when the witness kept saying that he could not remember the specifics of what was discussed at the time.
Mr O’Keefe asked: “You have known for the last year this is a huge trial about trade union involvement (and the) dismissal of 34 individuals for which you are responsible.
“How can you not assist the tribunal with the fine detail of what was going on in that period?”
Mr Spampinato responded: “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.