The long-running dispute between Rockstar Games and its dismissed staff is about to reach an important point. On September 10, an employment tribunal in Glasgow begins hearing the case of 31 UK workers, most of them on Grand Theft Auto VI, who were fired in October 2025 for what Rockstar calls gross misconduct and what their union says is something far worse. The hearing runs through October 16, wrapping just weeks before GTA 6 launches.
During this time, the opposing sides will try to find common ground because, so far, they haven't.
The only thing that these two parties seem to agree on is what happened and what started it all. In late October 2025, Rockstar summarily dismissed 34 employees, 31 in the UK and three in Canada, after they discussed internal company policies on a Discord server linked to the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain.
From there, the two accounts diverge completely.
The two sides of the Rockstar tribunal
Question | The IWGB and the workers | Rockstar and Take-Two |
|---|---|---|
Why were they fired? | Targeted for union membership and organizing | Gross misconduct, for sharing confidential information |
What was the Discord? | A private space for workers and the union | A public or insecure forum, against company policy |
Was the process fair? | No, summary dismissals with no hearing or appeal | Consistent with the misconduct alleged |
What happens next? | They want reinstatement or compensation | It wants the claims dismissed and denies union motives |
The differing accounts the Glasgow tribunal will weigh over the coming weeks.
The Game Workers branch of the IWGB calls it "union-busting" on a scale the games industry has never seen, arguing the workers were targeted for organizing and for discussing conditions in what it says was a private space. Its claims allege unfair dismissal, union victimization, and blacklisting, and the dismissed staff are seeking reinstatement or compensation. More than 200 Rockstar North employees signed a letter demanding that they bring their colleagues back.
Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive refused, saying otherwise. Take-Two said the firings were "for gross misconduct, and for no other reason," and Rockstar has maintained that those involved discussed or distributed confidential information, including features from unannounced games, in a forum it describes as public or insecure, in breach of company policy. It's flaout denying that it had anything to do with unionization.
An earlier round already went Rockstar's way. In January, the tribunal rejected the union's bid for interim relief, noting that some dismissed workers had posted little, that the Discord had roughly 350 mixed members, and that three of those fired were Canadian non-members, which made it hard to conclude union membership was the principal reason. Rockstar welcomed that finding. The case has only grown since, though. In June, the tribunal refused to strike out blacklisting allegations, resulting in this full hearing. By summer, the workers had applied for formal union recognition.
The entire situation has escalated beyond a Discord server. The case has since reached UK Parliament, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it "deeply concerning" and said ministers would look into it. It's also sitting against a wider backdrop of reported labor tension around GTA 6, from crunch complaints to the return-to-office push, the same era a former veteran recently described as a world away from the smaller, quieter studio he knew.
Now, what the tribunal decides is beyond the initial 31 people involved. This is Rockstar we're talking about. What happens here will become an asterisk on the biggest launch of the decade, for better or for worse.