GTA 6 NEWS · LABOR TRIBUNAL
The Rockstar Tribunal Opens in Glasgow — and Both Sides Came Out Swinging
The five-week employment tribunal pitting Rockstar Games against 31 fired developers from Rockstar North has begun in Glasgow — and if the opening statements are anything to go by, this is going to be a brawl. Outside the Glasgow Tribunals Centre, fired workers and IWGB union supporters rallied with placards reading “what’s disgusting; union busting” and “404: Rockstar’s respect for workers not found.” Inside, lawyers traded accusations that cut to the heart of how the studio behind GTA 6 actually operates.
We’ve been tracking this story since the final hearing was confirmed earlier this month. The first days of testimony have now put the core arguments on the record — and they reveal a company that describes its own security culture in terms usually reserved for Wall Street banks and the Coca-Cola formula.
What Happened
The case centers on the sudden firing of 31 Rockstar North employees in October 2025 — nearly a year ago now — and on a private IWGB Discord server where hundreds of Rockstar staff had been organizing toward a legally recognized union. Both sides agree on the basics of what the server was. They disagree violently on why the firings happened.
The IWGB’s version: Rockstar “clandestinely monitored” the Discord through a “mole” since at least February 2024, but took no action until days after union membership crossed the pivotal 10 percent threshold — the point at which a union can seek statutory recognition under UK law. The union’s opening statement, shared in full with Eurogamer, puts it starkly: Rockstar asks the tribunal to accept that after monitoring the server for almost two years without acting, it “happened to discover misconduct requiring immediate dismissal fortuitously at exactly the moment when the union had acquired the capacity to seek recognition.” The simpler explanation, the IWGB argues: “Rockstar struck at the union because it had become capable of exercising collective power.”
The union’s filing documents dozens of alleged meetings between Rockstar’s cyber security person and the mole over 21 months, with a drastic uptick around October 2025 as the threshold was reached. It claims “much of the union’s organizing cadre” was targeted in the resulting “decimation” — workers invited to brief “catch-up meetings,” handed pre-prepared dismissal letters, and escorted from the building with no opportunity to respond.
Rockstar’s version: the dismissals were for “gross misconduct” — the disclosure of confidential information on that same Discord. The company’s opening statement frames everything around what it calls an “embedded culture of confidentiality,” adopted to protect the “exceptional value and prestige” of Grand Theft Auto 6. It compares GTA 6’s secrets to Coca-Cola’s formula and Apple’s technology, and says it maintains “the security posture of a Wall Street Bank.”
Rockstar’s counter-argument to the timing is pointed: “If Rockstar was hostile towards the IWGB and had been since 2023, and was fearful of it achieving the 10 percent recognition threshold, it would have been insanity itself to take no action until the IWGB had already reached that threshold, and then in a 48 hour period simultaneously sack 31 union members. Their case is — literally — incredible.”
Inside Rockstar’s “Culture of Secrecy”
The most eye-opening material in Rockstar’s opening statement isn’t about the union at all — it’s the picture the company itself paints of life inside the studio. According to the filing: office visitors must sign NDAs; contractors are escorted by security; remote work is “severely restricted”; external storage devices are banned; photography is strictly forbidden; and personal phones, tablets and laptops are blocked from connecting to Rockstar systems.
And then it gets stranger. Rockstar claims it has faced “regular assaults on its security and systems,” that it installed privacy films on its buildings after drones were used to try to photograph through office windows, and that outside parties have monitored “the frequency of coffee shop trips by employees and pizza deliveries to the Rockstar offices” hoping to glean hints about GTA 6 progress. A leaked 2023 return-to-office plan, the company noted, generated global coverage and release-date conspiracy theories.
The studio also connected its security posture to recent events: the 2022 phishing-linked leak of unfinished GTA 6 footage, and this summer’s CyberLeek gameplay leaks — which it says were accompanied by a blackmail attempt and wiped roughly $2 billion off parent Take-Two’s share value within days. Rockstar told the tribunal it employs a full-time team of five investigators and a director to hunt potential leaks. On the Discord itself, Rockstar claims it found a journalist present, former employees “motivated to cause harm,” “vituperatively disparaging” messages about the company, and — most seriously — references to game features, including discussion of “an online 32 player format which was highly confidential at that time” and speculation about a release delay to Autumn 2026 before it was announced.
The IWGB’s response: the servers were invite-only, access-restricted, verified through Rockstar’s own Slack, and used for union business — meetings, training, surveys, petitions, advice, representation. The biggest room held nearly 350 people, a figure both parties agree on. Per Game Developer’s reporting on the filings, Rockstar also argues the union-busting claim fails because it fired three non-union members in Canada engaged in similar Discord conduct.
“Today, We Are Fighting Fear”
The courtroom fight is only half the story. Outside, fired Rockstar worker Rachel Crawford delivered a speech that’s already traveling far beyond Scotland. “The modern workplace runs on fear: fear of speaking out, fear of being punished, fear of being fired, losing your livelihood and even your home,” Crawford said. She described being fired on October 30, 2025 “without warning and without even being given a clear answer about what it was I’d done to deserve it,” and being out the door within minutes.
“Fear wants to rule us. It closes our minds, our hearts, and our horizons. It makes us small, sad and hopeless,” she continued. “But today, we are fighting fear. This long-awaited hearing is an opportunity to put fear in its place below us… In spite of fear, we will stand up proudly, speak out truth, and demand a better industry, a better world that we all deserve. Union makes us strong.”
The stakes are real. The IWGB is seeking either reinstatement or compensation for the 31 workers, plus a formal finding that the dismissals were unfair. A win would be a historic step toward union recognition at Rockstar and across the UK games industry — and the case has already reached Parliament, with then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer previously calling the firings “deeply concerning.”
What This Means for GTA 6
First, the calendar overlap is brutal for Rockstar’s PR team: the hearing runs five weeks, until October 16 — landing just weeks before GTA 6’s November 19 launch. Every headline about drones, moles and dismissal letters now shares space with trailer coverage.
Second, the “32-player online format” detail is the first time that specific claim has surfaced in public court filings — a small but real data point for everyone watching how GTA 6’s online future shapes up. Rockstar hasn’t announced any multiplayer plans; the filing describes it as confidential information allegedly disclosed, not a confirmed feature set. Read it as evidence of how tightly the studio guards online plans, not as a spec sheet.
Third, whatever the verdict, the case is already reshaping the industry conversation around game-studio labor — and it’s a reminder that GTA 6’s story includes the people who built it, not just the ones who’ll play it.
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Related reading: The tribunal’s final hearing, previewed · The CyberLeak leak timeline · GTA 6 Online: three possible futures · Rockstar devs celebrate the reveal