Rockstar Games Accused Of Union Busting In The Uk

Rockstar Games, developer of Grand Theft Auto VI, has been accused of deliberately laying disconnected labor who were trying to unionize, Bloomberg reports. The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) claims complete 30 labor who were eliminated astatine nan developer's offices successful nan UK and Canada were either already portion of a national aliases attempting to organize.

"Rockstar has conscionable carried retired nan astir blatant and ruthless enactment of national busting successful nan history of nan games industry," IWGB President Alex Marshall said successful a blog post astir nan layoffs. "This flagrant contempt for nan rule and for nan lives of nan workers who bring successful their billions is an reproach to their fans and nan world industry."

Besides nan disruption of having to find a caller job, nan national notes that respective labor who were fto spell are peculiarly vulnerable. "Amongst nan unit dismissed were those pinch visas sponsored by Rockstar and those pinch aesculapian conditions who will suffer entree to basal workplace healthcare schemes," nan national says. It adds that "all of those dismissed astatine Rockstar UK were members of nan IWGB Game Workers Union discord channel, and look to person been targeted for this reason." In consequence to nan IWGB's claims, Rockstar's patient and proprietor Take-Two Interactive told Bloomberg that nan layoffs had thing to do pinch national activity and alternatively were "for gross misconduct, and for nary different reason."

Rockstar and Take-Two person travel into conflict pinch labor successful nan past complete their return-to-office policy. Take-Two besides laid disconnected unit crossed aggregate studios successful 2024 and 2025, perchance motivated by nan determination to push backmost nan release of Grand Theft Auto VI to 2026. The crippled is expected to beryllium a monolithic hit for nan institution and nan wider industry, which is portion of nan logic why nan IWGB believes nan layoffs are motivated by thing different than financials.