Wednesday, December 10th 2025

Alleged Rockstar 'Union Busting' Draws UK Prime Minister's Attention

We recently reported on a series of firings at Rockstar, which resulted in accusations of union busting from the affected employees and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain and a subsequent open letter from over 200 Rockstar North employees demanding that the fired employees be reinstated. Following the aftermath of the firing, the matter was brought up in a session of the British parliament, to which Keir Starmer responded that ministers would "look into the particular case" of alleged union busting. Rockstar, for its part, insists that the employees were fired due to "gross employee misconduct," with Rockstar claiming that confidential information was leaked in a public forum—in this case a Discord chat—although the union fighting on behalf of the employees denies these allegations.

Whether the UK parliament will actually uncover anything meaningful is unclear, although the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain's Game Workers division has filed a lawsuit against Rockstar Games alleging wrongful dismissal. In the press release about the lawsuit, the IWGB revealed that it had attempted to meet with Rockstar Games, although the game studio had declined the meeting request. This is also only the latest in a long line of layoffs that has plagued the gaming industry for the last few years, with an unofficial gaming layoffs tracker reporting that over 3,500 gaming employees have been laid off in 2025 so far.
Sources: IWGB, IWGB Game Workers on X, Gaming Layoffs Tracker

5 Comments on Alleged Rockstar 'Union Busting' Draws UK Prime Minister's Attention

#1
Chaitanya
it will be another round of damp squibs with wasted taxpayer money on "investigations" given importance of Rockstar to UKs tech/gaming sector.
Posted on Reply
#2
AusWolf
I knew it would come to this. I even commented something along these lines in under the original article.
Posted on Reply
#3
FatherOBlivion
I imagine Rockstar is having internal discussions about getting out of the UK. If politicians decide to make something out of this, they'd be fools not to.
Posted on Reply
#4
AusWolf
FatherOBlivionI imagine Rockstar is having internal discussions about getting out of the UK. If politicians decide to make something out of this, they'd be fools not to.
I think it's a wee bit too late for that now.
Posted on Reply
#5
the54thvoid
Super Moderator
Um.. Couldn't be more political.
Posted on Reply
Nov 13th, 2026 23:22 CST change timezone

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