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IGN Employees Walk Out After Former Employee’s Sexual Harassment Claims

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A significant number of staff at popular gaming entity IGN have staged a protest over the mistreatment of claims alleging sexual harassment of former employees by former IGN editor Vince Ingenito, who has since responded to the claims.

Former IGN staffer Kallie Plagge alleges she and a coworker were harassed repeatedly, and then thoroughly mistreated when they reported the incident to HR in 2016. Plagge stated that they were told to sit and work in a glass conference room while IGN decided what to do. Then, Plagge said, she was forced to sign a document saying that she had conducted herself inappropriately, with no apparent wrong doing on her part, nor explanation from management.

“There won’t be a Daily Fix today because a large group of IGN employees have refused to work until the company issues a statement/apology regarding what happened to Kallie Plagge,” IGN’s Alanah Pearce wrote on Twitter this afternoon, referring to a former co-worker who on Friday had accused the company’s HR department of mistreating her. The Daily Fix is IGN’s regular news show.

After several hours, a response was posted that was attributed to “the IGN content team, not by management or legal or anyone else”; that statement puts the blame squarely on IGN’s shoulders and was clearly meant as a statement of solidarity with the victims.

“When the women made management and human resources aware of the situation involving a now-former employee, those women, in the estimation of the IGN team, did not get the respect and care that they deserved as IGN employees and as people. That system, plainly put, failed them. It especially failed them but it also failed all of us,” reads an excerpt of the statement.

“All of us have been wounded deeply by this – though again, our suffering is nothing compared to those of our two beloved friends – and this morning we addressed the open wound directly with our management team and human resources representative in an emotional, difficult, but ultimately productive two-hour meeting, where any and all voices were heard.”

Kotaku has obtained an email to IGN staff from IGN general manager Mitch Galbraith stating plans to address the problem.

“I am taking the following steps to ensure we achieve our goals. First, I will enlist an independent expert to thoroughly examine how we handled the matter in question and, more broadly, all other important aspects of creating a healthy workplace,” reads an excerpt of the email. “Second, I will turn the findings and recommendations of that review into specific actions that I will share with all of you. I will be accountable to you for delivering results. Third, I will work to give HR a stronger presence throughout IGN, including outside the San Francisco office.”

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