Two weeks after GTA 6’s Netflix reveal blew the internet up, and with the game itself only a couple of months from landing on shelves, Rockstar Games has something a lot less glamorous to deal with this week: an employment tribunal in Glasgow. The final hearing in the case of Rockstar Games vs. 31 fired Rockstar North employees begins on Thursday, September 10, 2026 — and it’s a big one.
This is the culmination of almost a year of legal fighting, public protests, parliamentary questions, and some of the most uncomfortable headlines a video game studio has ever generated in the lead-up to what’s supposed to be the biggest entertainment release in history. So here’s the full story — where it started, where it stands right now, and what’s at stake when the hearing opens.
What Happened — The Short Version
In October 2025, Rockstar Games fired 34 employees. Thirty-one of those were based at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland. The reason given by Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive? Gross misconduct — specifically, the allegation that employees had been sharing confidential information in a private Discord channel operated by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB).
The employees tell a very different story. According to them — and to the IWGB, which has championed their case from day one — that Discord channel was exactly what you’d expect from a union channel: a place to talk about salaries, HR concerns, and working conditions. Normal union activity, in other words. The kind of thing that, in the UK, employees have a legal right to do. On the day of the firings, employees who were in the building were called into meetings and told they were done, effective immediately, then escorted out. Those who weren’t there received phone calls that lasted around two minutes before their work accounts were shut off. No disciplinary process. No right of appeal.
One employee, Will Mesilane, faced consequences that went even further. Rockstar withdrew his work visa and reported him to the UK Home Office, giving him no opportunity to appeal. He was forced to leave the UK and return to Australia.
What the IWGB Is Alleging
The IWGB is bringing two main allegations against Rockstar at this final hearing:
- Unlawful dismissal based on union activity — the union argues Rockstar specifically identified and targeted workers because of their IWGB membership, which would make the dismissals discriminatory and illegal under UK employment law
- Blacklisting — the IWGB alleges Rockstar compiled information about union-active workers and used it to discriminate against them, which is a specific legal practice with its own protections in UK law
The workers are seeking either reinstatement to their positions at Rockstar, or compensation — and critically, they want a formal tribunal finding that their dismissals were unfair. Getting that on the official record matters beyond just their individual cases: it sends a message to every employer in the UK about what they can and cannot do when their staff try to organise.
Rockstar Tried to Narrow the Case — and Failed
Earlier this year, Rockstar attempted to have the blacklisting claims thrown out of the case entirely before it reached this final hearing. The employment tribunal rejected that application outright, ruling that Rockstar would have to face those allegations head-on. That was a significant early blow for Rockstar, and the IWGB came out of that preliminary ruling feeling, by their own account, more confident than ever about the strength of their case.
Separately, an earlier bid by the workers to receive interim pay — essentially getting back on Rockstar’s payroll while the legal process played out — was denied by a judge. The judge ruled at that stage that it didn’t yet appear likely that the tribunal would find union activity was the principal reason for the dismissals. But that was a preliminary threshold to clear for emergency relief, not a verdict on the full case. The workers pressed on regardless.
The Hearing: Dates, Location, and What the IWGB Wants
The final hearing runs from Thursday, September 10 through to Thursday, October 16 at Glasgow Tribunals Centre. It wraps up just over a month before GTA 6’s release on November 19 — which means Rockstar will be navigating the biggest game launch in history while a tribunal verdict hangs over its head. The IWGB has also organised a rally outside the tribunal venue at 8:30am on opening day for anyone who wants to show support.
The case reference is 4104294/2025 (Garland & Others vs. Rockstar), for anyone who wants to follow proceedings in person. The tribunal runs 10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, excluding the bank holiday on September 28.
What the Workers Are Saying
Former Rockstar employee Jason Lewis has been one of the most vocal voices throughout this entire saga. His words ahead of the final hearing are worth taking in fully:
“For almost a year, the truth about what happened to us has been buried by Rockstar and surrounded by speculation. Now we finally get the chance to put it on the record. None of us imagined that talking to each other about our working conditions would turn our lives upside down and catapult us into the centre of a global media storm. As the world prepares for the release of GTA 6, we are reliving the heartbreak of being thrown out of a project we poured so much of our lives into. We lost our jobs, our income, our community and the chance to see the game through to release after spending years helping to build it. It was devastating.”
IWGB president Alex Marshall put it in the most quotable terms possible: “We believe Rockstar has tried to get away with Grand Theft Employment Rights.” Whether or not that line earns a laugh, the underlying point is serious — and the tribunal is where it gets tested.
The Political and Public Fallout
This case got big fast. The firings triggered protests outside Rockstar’s offices and Take-Two’s offices in London, Paris, and New York. The matter was raised directly in Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK Parliament by MP Chris Murray. Then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it “a deeply concerning case,” adding: “Every worker has the right to join a trade union and we’re determined to strengthen workers’ rights and ensure they don’t face unfair consequences for being part of a union.”
That’s sitting prime minister commentary on a video game studio’s HR decisions. The scale of attention this case attracted says a lot about how it resonated beyond the games industry — it became a test case for how seriously the UK takes workers’ rights to organise in 2025 and 2026.
The Bigger Picture: The Rockstar Game Workers Union
One of the things that makes this case particularly layered is that the firings didn’t shut down union activity at Rockstar — they arguably accelerated it. A Rockstar Game Workers Union (RGWU) has since formed and continues to grow, separate from the IWGB workers fighting the tribunal case. This union is currently seeking voluntary recognition from Rockstar and has made several additional allegations against the company, including:
- Enforcing crunch culture — union members say crunch is built so deeply into contracts that Rockstar includes a standard opt-out of UK Working Time Regulations, meaning staff have to actively opt back in to limit their own overtime
- Weaponising bonus payments — a significant portion of employee pay comes through bonuses that workers describe as unpredictable, inconsistent, and used as a tool of control rather than reward
- Ignoring a widening gender pay gap — unionised workers say the gap between median wages for different genders has actually grown at Rockstar, and that initiatives aimed at fixing it have been scrapped entirely
- No extra pay for nightshift workers — employees say unsociable hours no longer come with any additional compensation
Take-Two has responded to these allegations with statements about fostering a culture of “teamwork, excellence, and kindness” and citing employee retention rates above industry average. Workers who spoke to Game Developer noted that some conditions have improved since the 2025 firings brought widespread attention — wages increased and crunch now comes with some financial incentive for the first time — but say the core issues remain unresolved. This is the kind of ongoing tension in the games industry that makes following labor issues in gaming as important as following the game releases themselves. The Hideki Kamiya debate around game preservation and the rights of creators is another angle worth considering when thinking about who games are really made for — and who benefits.
Rockstar’s Position
Rockstar and Take-Two have maintained throughout that the 31 employees were fired for gross misconduct — specifically for sharing information in the Discord channel that they say constituted a breach of confidentiality agreements. Take-Two has claimed the leaked content included GTA 6 features, development timelines, and IT security protocols, and that this was sensitive enough to have meaningful impact on the company had it circulated publicly. When Rockstar confirmed GTA 6’s delay to November 19, Take-Two’s market cap reportedly dropped over $3 billion in a single day — which gives some context for how seriously they treat confidentiality around the project.
Rockstar has declined to comment on the ongoing legal matter beyond its established position. The tribunal will now be the place where both sides make their case in full.
The Discord Factor — and Take-Two’s Other Legal Fight
There’s an interesting parallel running alongside this case. Take-Two has also been legally attempting to force private user information out of Discord, this time in relation to recent leaks of GTA 6 gameplay footage. The company’s relationship with the platform as a place where people discuss things they perhaps shouldn’t is clearly a recurring theme. For the 31 fired workers, though, the content of that private channel — discussing salaries and working conditions with their union — is precisely what makes the dismissals look, to many observers, like union busting dressed up as a confidentiality breach.
What Happens Next
The tribunal runs for over a month. A verdict won’t come immediately — these things take time once a hearing concludes. But when it does, the implications extend well beyond Rockstar North. If the tribunal finds the dismissals were unlawful, it validates what the IWGB has been arguing from the start: that UK workers cannot be fired for organising, full stop. If it goes the other way, it raises uncomfortable questions about the limits of union protections in industries where confidentiality is treated as an absolute.
GTA 6 launches on November 19, 2026. The tribunal closes, at the earliest, on October 16. Whatever you’re playing this holiday season — whether it’s GTA 6, the Zelda Ocarina of Time remake on Switch 2, or something else entirely — the people who made those games deserve to be treated fairly. That’s what this case is ultimately about. And we’ll be watching closely to see how it ends.
