Rockstar workers vote on union recognition as GTA VI launch looms
More than 1,600 Rockstar Games employees in the UK will begin voting on union recognition on Thursday, with the ballot kicking off just a week before the long-awaited launch of Grand Theft Auto VI.
Key points
- For me, those two things are connected," said Nestor Uriate, an animation programmer and Rockstar Game Workers Union representative.
- Rockstar denied the allegations, insisting the workers were dismissed for gross misconduct rather than their union activities.
- "We care deeply about the games we make, and we want to make sure we can continue doing that work in an environment where we're respected, have a meaningful say over our conditions and can feel secure about our futures." The vote follows a year of bad blood between Rockstar and the IWGB.
The ballot, which opens on November 12 and runs until November 26, will determine whether Rockstar formally recognizes the Rockstar Game Workers Union, part of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB).
Additional details
- Despite the ongoing dispute, Rockstar's head of publishing, Jennifer Kolbe, recently indicated that management would respect the outcome of the recognition vote, telling Bloomberg: "We go where the team goes.
- So if they want a union, they will have a union." The union campaign has also attracted support from elsewhere in the games industry, including SAG-AFTRA and the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which represents workers at Blizzard.
- Workers across the games industry are watching, and this ballot is an opportunity to show what can be achieved when people come together, organize and build the collective power to shape their own working lives." For Rockstar, November was already shaping up to be a big month.
- The union accused the GTA developer of union busting after it fired 31 members in October 2025, claiming they had been singled out for taking part in a private Discord group.
- Alex Marshall, president of the IWGB, said the vote was an opportunity for Rockstar employees to take greater control over their working conditions.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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