Rockstar Staff to Vote on Union During GTA 6 Release Week as Sacked Workers' Tribunal Reaches Closing Stage

Rockstar Games' UK employees vote from 12 to 26 November on whether to recognise their union. Voting spans the console launch of Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) on 19 November. The IWGB says a 'yes' vote would cover more than 1,600 workers and create the UK games sector's largest recognised union.

On 17 and 18 November, lawyers make closing submissions at a Glasgow employment tribunal. Employment tribunals hear disputes between workers and employers. Former employees brought the case after Rockstar sacked 31 union members in 2025. The workers say Rockstar fired them for building a union, and the company denies that.

What Recognition Would Change Inside Rockstar

Union recognition allows a union to negotiate collectively with an employer over workers' pay and conditions. The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) asked Rockstar for voluntary recognition on 30 June. Talks began in July. The IWGB says the recognition agreement would cover pay, bonuses, overtime, redundancies, flexible working and generative artificial intelligence (AI) policies, as its post below shows.

Staff cast their votes online and in secret. This ballot covers recognition, not strike action, and the release date stands. Shanti Easton-Steel, from the union's Rockstar committee, said the release month gives staff an opening to 'make gaming history not once but twice.' She wants bosses to be open about the gender pay gap and change overtime pay rules. She says co-workers share her fears for their jobs once the game ships.

Inside the Glasgow Dismissal Case

Rockstar fired 34 people in the UK and Canada on 30 October 2025, and 31 of them were UK-based union members. Rockstar says the group shared confidential details of unreleased games on Discord, a group chat app. In filings, the sacked staff allege a colleague passed information from their union Discord server to a Rockstar manager for almost two years. They say the firings came days after union membership passed 10% of the proposed bargaining unit, the minimum needed to apply for statutory recognition.

Rockstar rejects that account. 'We reject the claims and will defend them vigorously before the tribunal,' the company told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in September. Charlie Kinloch, the Rockstar manager who received the chats, told the hearing he did not track who joined and focused on leak risk. Hearings were due to end on 16 October. Judge Lucy Wiseman gave Rockstar's lawyers more time to question some of those sacked, and the last days moved back a month.

What Happens After Launch Day

The tribunal's two closing days are for submissions, not a ruling, and the judge has not said when she will decide the case. One of Rockstar's top bosses has sounded open to a union. Jennifer Kolbe, the head of publishing, told Bloomberg News in October: 'So if they want a union, they will have a union.'

Alex Marshall, the IWGB's president, called the ballot 'just as historic as the game release.' Blizzard Entertainment, the US maker of World of Warcraft, gives a sense of scale. Nearly 1,900 union-represented workers there ratified contracts with the Microsoft-owned company in September, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) says.