Rockstar employee sheds light on alleged union busting and ruthless HR meetings

Following the sudden firing of over 30 employees and the delay of GTA 6, new information has come to light about what’s been happening internally at Rockstar. While the company maintains that the firings were for leaking information and gross misconduct, the former employees are calling it a union busting move. Now, a current employee has shared that this was in fact a union busting move, along with other details.

As per GTA Forums, a current Rockstar employee who chose to remain anonymous in fear of “retaliation from the company” has responded to the online discussions in hopes to clear some of the disinformation. The firings happened individually with five-minute HR meetings under the pretext of “Hey, are you free for a quick chat?” with those present in the office, and a two-minute phone call with those working remotely.

They were simply told that their employment was being terminated for "gross misconduct" regarding posts made in Discord. No further evidence or proof was provided. One of the employees, as the anonymous poster adds, had a panic attack on getting the news and HR hung up on them.

State of the union

As per the post, the union had reached around 200 members a week ago, which made them eligible for recognition and bargaining with management. The Discord group in question comprised of employees and union members from the IWGB with a total of 250 members. More than 34 of these members were fired by Rockstar. While this still puts them above the 10% threshold for recognition, the discussion has now shifted to fighting the wrongful termination and trying to reinstate the fired employees.

Those who were let go included team leads, very senior artists, animators, QA testers, designers, producers, and programmers. Some of them were on sick leave, paternity leave, or recovering from surgery. Some could even potentially lose their UK work VISAs. The poster states this was a clear case of union busting since every one of those fired was a union member.

Furthermore, those who are still working at Rockstar are now in fear of losing their jobs. “Morale in the studio is at rock bottom. When we should be excited about what's to come over the next year we are now totally deflated and our trust and confidence in others is totally shot,” they added.

The employee who shared all this information has apparently confirmed their identity as an actual Rockstar employee with an admin of the forum, who has corroborated this claim.