GoKawiilWorkers at Rockstar Games have announced the formation of the Rockstar Game Workers Union, the first labor union at the Grand Theft Auto developer. According to an explanatory video released alongside the announcement, the new union represents workers in Edinburgh, London, Leeds, Lincoln and Dundee, covering all of Rockstar's offices in the UK.
The new organization is a subsidiary of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), and members say they're focusing on issues like "pay transparency, flexible working and an end to crunch." More immediately, they're also responding to the conflict that galvanized the union's current support: the sudden firing of 31 union members in October 2026. At the time, the IWGB called the decision "the most blatant and ruthless act of union busting in the history of the games industry," while Rockstar maintained that workers were let go for "gross misconduct" around the sharing of confidential information. If you take Rockstar at its word, it was just a coincidence that all the workers who were let go also happened to be members of a union organizing Discord channel.
In the fallout of the firings, protests were held in front of several of Rockstar's studios and the IWGB later filed a legal claim against the developer over what it considered to be the unfair dismissal of its employees. The fired workers were denied interim pay by a UK employment tribunal in January 2026, but the case has yet to fully play out in court. Part of the reason the Rockstar Game Workers Union decided to go public now is to help raise money for their legal defense.
The timing couldn't be better. All eyes are currently on Rockstar Games and its owner 2K because of the highly anticipated launch of Grand Theft Auto VI in November. Unless the game is somehow delayed again, some of that attention will also be on the Rockstar Game Workers Union.