Rockstar's UK workers vote from today until 26 November on recognising their union, right through GTA 6's launch. It's a year after the studio sacked 31 union members, and that fight isn't over.
Rockstar's UK staff vote on union recognition from 12 to 26 November.
A yes would cover more than 1,600 workers, the biggest recognised union in UK games.
It covers pay, overtime, redundancies, flexible work and generative AI.
The tribunal over Rockstar firing 31 union members wraps up on 17 and 18 November.
GTA 6 still launches on 19 November. This is a recognition vote, not a strike.
A week before GTA 6 comes out, the people who made it get to decide whether they want a union. Rockstar’s UK staff start voting today on recognising the Rockstar Game Workers Union, and the ballot stays open until 26 November, right through launch week.
If it passes, the union says it will be the biggest recognised union in the UK games industry. And it’s happening a year after Rockstar sacked more than 30 union members, a fight that is still in front of an employment tribunal.
Union committee member Shanti Easton-Steel says the timing is the point. “As all our hard work, skill and creativity are experienced by GTA VI players for the first time, our voices will now be heard for the first time too,” she said in the IWGB’s announcement, as reported by Game Developer.
Easton-Steel says workers want honesty about the decisions that affect them. She points to the gender pay gap, “uneven and ever-changing policies on overtime pay”, and worries many co-workers have about job security once the game ships.
That last one stings. Plenty of studios have shipped a monster hit and started cutting staff weeks later, and this is the biggest game launch in years.
On 30 October 2025, Rockstar fired 34 people in the UK and Canada, and 31 of them were UK union members, according to IBTimes. Rockstar says they were dismissed for gross misconduct after sharing confidential information about unreleased games on a Discord server.
The sacked workers and the IWGB call it union busting, and Rockstar denies that. Closing arguments at the employment tribunal in Glasgow are set for 17 and 18 November, the two days before GTA 6 launches.
Hollywood actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, which represents video game performers, has publicly endorsed the ballot. “This is a fight for all workers,” it said in a statement reported by GamesBeat, pointing to record layoffs and crunch.
Blizzard’s union workers have also posted their support, the Rockstar union said on Bluesky. Meanwhile Take-Two is banking on GTA 6 to carry its whole year, as it made clear in its pre-launch earnings.
Vote yes, obviously. Take-Two is about to make an obscene pile of money off GTA 6, and the people who spent years building it deserve a seat at the table when the post-launch “restructuring” talk inevitably starts.
Rockstar saying it’ll go where the team goes is a nice line. It would land better if the company hadn’t spent the last year in a tribunal over sacking a big chunk of the union’s members.
Here’s hoping launch week brings a record-breaking game and a record-breaking union. Rockstar can afford both. And if the game’s 30fps cap annoys you, remember the devs aren’t the ones who set the release date.
Should the people who make your games be unionised? Come argue about it in the GetRekt Discord. Everything else is on our GTA 6 page.
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