The Glasgow Employment Tribunal has rejected a request for interim relief filed for staff fired by Rockstar.
IGN and Bloomberg report that the games giant has insisted that these workers were dismissed for leaking information about the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 in a Discord server rather than their attempts to unionise. This action had been brought by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB).
“In all the circumstances, the tribunal was unable to conclude that it appears likely that the tribunal will find that the principal reason for the claimants’ dismissal was their membership of the IWGB,” Judge Frances Eccles wrote in the judgment, seen by Gamesindustry.biz.
They added that three of the affected workers were based in Canada and were not IWGB members, meaning their union membership could not be a factor in their dismissal.
“There were also employees connected to the IWGB as members of the organising committee, who showed support for the trade union or identified themselves as a trade union members on Discord and who were not dismissed,” Eccles wrote.
The judge did write that some staff were dismissed despite “having posted very little on the Discord server”, however, while others had not posted for “over a year”.
Eccles also wrote in her judgement that the affected workers were told about their dismissals “with very little, if any, notice… no one was suspended. There were disciplinary hearings. The claimants were not given the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing before the decision was taken to dismiss them.” The judge added that the comments that Rockstar relied on to dismiss affected staff were “obtained without the knowledge of employees using Discord” something that the former Rockstar workers describe as “covert monitoring”.
Interim relief would have meant the affected workers would have been put back on Rockstar’s payroll while waiting for a full hearing.
The aforementioned IWGB Discord server had around 350 members, more than half of whom were union members. Some were former Rockstar employees, while one appears to be a journalist who has written about the studio and Grand Theft Auto’s development. According to the judgment, the comments that Rockstar claims amount to “gross misconduct” were posted in the server’s #general channel.
Per IGN’s reporting, the fired workers’ legal representative, Lord John Hendy KC, argued that no information had actually leaked, adding that there had only been the “risk” of a leak.
“We welcome the decision, which is consistent with Rockstar’s position throughout,” a representative for the company said.
“We regret that we were put in a position where dismissals were necessary, but we stand by our course of action as supported by the outcome of this hearing.”
The IWGB, meanwhile, has expressed disappointment with the decision but remains optimistic about the full hearing.
“In fact, we are emerging from this hearing, having now had a glimpse of Rockstar’s flimsy grounds for defence, feeling bolstered in our claims that these firings were not just deeply unjust but also plainly unlawful,” the union wrote in a statement.
“The judge stated in her ruling that: ‘There was no evidence of the respondent having suffered any adverse consequences as a result of these postings’.”
In November 2025, the IWGB accused Rockstar of union busting when it fired 34 staff at the company. The Grand Theft Auto giant countered, saying they were fired for sharing “confidential information”.
Subsequent reporting suggested that the staff were dismissed for discussing Rockstar’s Slack policies in an invite-only Discord server.
