Fired GTA 6 developers fight back: UK union demands reinstatement and visa protection
The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, or IWGB, is currently moving ahead with interim relief for 31 Rockstar employees from the UK who were working on GTA 6. This escalated after a preliminary hearing on 5 January 2026 at Glasgow’s Tribunals Center, where the union accused Rockstar Games of “brutal union busting.” However, Rockstar vehemently denies the allegations.
According to IGN, Rockstar Games claimed that the employees in question were fired for internal leaks of confidential information about upcoming GTA 6 features via an “insecure” social channel.
The interim relief would provide the affected former Rockstar employees with reinstatement of payroll and work visas following a full trial. Unfortunately, three affected Canadian developers aren’t included in this movement due to regional differences.
The employees in question were fired last year, prompting the former Rockstar devs to protest outside the studio’s offices in the UK and Canada. The IWGB has now stepped in, arguing that Rockstar is violating labour laws by suspending union workers who were merely involved in a push for unionisation.
The union issued a statement highlighting this:
This case is not just about the suffering of the 31 people who lost their livelihoods in the blink of an eye. This is about the arrogance of a company like Rockstar, thinking that its size and profitability grant it an unlimited license to abuse its workers and do so with impunity.
Rockstar, on the other hand, stuck to its narrative and told IGN that it “categorically denies” the union-busting allegations and that ex-employees “discussed highly confidential information, including relating to game features from upcoming and unannounced titles, in an insecure and public social channel.”
IWGB president Alex Marshall fired back in November, saying, “This was on a finite union Discord in which people were discussing their material conditions at the company, and they should be legally protected to do that.”
Rockstar further stated that “employees who posted union-supporting messages, but did not breach confidentiality, were not dismissed,” and denied the notion of having a “blacklist” of union members. It drew an uncharacteristically hard line on the issue, especially for the UK, where labor laws are considerably stronger than in the US, where Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, is incorporated.
Rockstar further stated:
We regret that these dismissals were necessary; however, confidentiality is fundamental to everything Rockstar Games does. Global interest in our games is unparalleled. Even the smallest leak of any information relating to our products and practices can cause major commercial and creative damage, as we have seen in the past.
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