Rockstar’s UK staff will vote on union recognition from November 12 to 26, across GTA 6’s launch

Rockstar Games staff in the UK will vote on whether to recognise a union from November 12 to 26, 2026, a window that includes GTA 6’s November 19 launch. Kotaku reported the dates on October 27, citing a press release from the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB). Game Developer and PC Gamer reported the same dates the same day. Everything below is attributed to those outlets and the union.

According to the release as Kotaku describes it, the vote is on recognising the IWGB, and the union says that if it succeeds it would be the largest recognised video game union in the UK. The union says its members have been meeting Rockstar management since July to agree a recognition deal. It says that deal would give workers a say on pay, bonuses, overtime, flexible working, redundancies and generative AI policy. In a June 30 post, the IWGB said workers had asked Rockstar to recognise the union voluntarily. Kotaku says it has gone to a vote instead.

The coverage we read does not say who is running the ballot or how many people are eligible to vote.

Shanti Easton-Steel, a committee member of the Rockstar Game Workers Union, is quoted by PC Gamer and Game Developer. She said staff have a chance to "make gaming history not once but twice", and that for her the vote is about getting "honesty and openness" from management about decisions that affect staff. IWGB president Alex Marshall, quoted by PC Gamer, called the vote "just as historic as the game release".

Rockstar has not commented on the vote, PC Gamer says. It points to Rockstar’s head of publishing, Jennifer Kolbe, who said in a recent Bloomberg feature that "we go where the team goes" and that if staff want a union, "they will have a union". We found no statement from Take-Two about the vote.

The vote lands alongside a separate dispute. In October 2025, 31 people involved in the union effort were dismissed. The IWGB and the fired workers call it union busting. Kotaku reports that Rockstar maintains they were fired for "gross misconduct, and for no other reason", and that it later said they had discussed company secrets in an external channel. An employment tribunal is hearing the case, and Kotaku says closing submissions are expected on November 17 and 18. Game Developer notes the ballot is taking place independently of the tribunal.

No result is expected before the ballot closes on November 26, a week after launch. We will update this story when the union or Rockstar publishes an outcome. GTA 6 launches on November 19, 2026 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.