Canadian among fired workers from Grand Theft Auto studio says they just want their jobs back | CBC News

Entertainment Rockstar Games is currently developing the upcoming video game Grand Theft Auto VI. A former employee of its Toronto studio tells CBC News they were shocked to be fired along with 33 others, including in the U.K., in the fall.(Leon Neal/Getty Images) Protesters and union members hold a picket outside the offices of video game studio Rockstar Toronto in Oakville, Ont., on Dec. 12.(Jonathan Ore/CBC) Grand Theft Auto VI follows the previous instalment released in 2013 and a long-running online version of the game, which has made parent company Take-Two Interactive billions of dollars in revenue.(Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive) Union members and protesters join a solidarity picket nearby the video game studio Rockstar Toronto's offices in Oakville.(Jonathan Ore/CBC) Canadian among fired workers from Grand Theft Auto studio says they just want their jobs back Rockstar Games accused of union-busting after firing 34 in Canada and U.K. in October The firing of several employees at the makers of the Grand Theft Auto video games came as a complete surprise, according to one of the Canadian workers who was let go this past fall. "I had no idea what was going on. I was shell-shocked," said one of three game developers fired from Rockstar Toronto (actually in Oakville, Ont.). CBC News is not naming the developer out of fear of retaliation, including being blacklisted from future employment in the games industry. Thirty-one Rockstar employees working in the U.K. were fired the same day . Rockstar Games, which has multiple studios, primarily in the U.S., and U.K., alleges they were fired for "gross misconduct," and leaking company secrets. Alex Marshall, president of the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), called the firings "one of the most blatant and ruthless acts of union busting in the history of the games industry." It's the latest lightning rod for discussion about unionization in a hugely profitable, international industry that has historically been very resistant to it - even amidst reports of employees being burned out by unpaid overtime, and thousands of layoffs in recent years. The employee told CBC News that on Oct. 30, three workers at Rockstar Toronto were each "brought into a room with an HR person" and told they were being terminated for breaking a non-disclosure agreement, which every employee must sign before working there. "They ended up just giving us our essentials and ... we were immediately escorted out of the building by security." CBC News reached out to Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar's parent company, for comment on the fired Canadian developers but received no response. Firings have 'a chilling effect' on the industry: union rep Nasr Ahmed, staff organizer at Communications Workers of America (CWA) Canada, was part of a small solidarity march outside Rockstar Toronto's offices earlier in December. He called Rockstar's claims of the fired workers leaking confidential information "patently false." "They have not provided any proof for those claims, either for the Canadian workers or the U.K. workers," he said. He corroborated an account from the IWGB that...

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