Glasgow tribunal against 31 fired Rockstar workers opens weeks before GTA VI launch

2 updates

1. Oct 14

   what Bloomberg reports

   In its feature on GTA VI's development, Bloomberg puts the October 2025 dismissals at 34 (the 31 in this case are the UK ones) and expects the tribunal to rule at the end of October. It also reports that the group asked for voluntary union recognition over the summer and now meets management every week. Rockstar's head of publishing, Jennifer Kolbe, calls it a positive process: "If they want a union, they will have a union" (Bloomberg, our recap).

2. Oct 13Rockstar's HR lead takes the stand

   On October 9, Charlie Kinloch, HR manager and co-studio operations director at Rockstar Lincoln, gave evidence. According to Eurogamer, he said he had "little interest" in which staff were union members, and that his concern was disparagement of the company and the risk of leaks.

   The fired workers' lawyer asked why Rockstar waited until October 2025 when Kinloch had known about some of those messages for well over a year. His answer: the company was on the cusp of "a significant announcement" (GTA VI's delay to November 2026 came days later), the Discord was growing fast with many anonymous members, and at that point any leaked comment could do real damage (Kotaku). The claimants read it differently. Their filings say the union had just reached the 10% of the workforce that UK law requires to seek recognition, and the firings followed within days (Game Developer).

   At the center of it is "AB", a junior employee who, the claimants say, passed screenshots of the server to Kinloch for years. Rockstar says AB did so voluntarily, and AB won't testify. The Times adds that Kinloch admitted deleting screenshots he kept on his phone and denied trying to destroy evidence, saying he was uneasy about keeping them there.

   The hearing continues this week with more management witnesses and wraps up on October 16. No date has been set for a ruling.

3. Story published · Sep 12

On September 10, the final hearing opened in Glasgow in one of the video game industry's most closely watched labor disputes. Rockstar Games is answering, before the Glasgow Employment Tribunal, for the mass dismissal of 31 former employees in October 2025, in the middle of GTA VI's final development stretch.

What happened

Rockstar fired 31 UK-based staff on October 30, 2025, according to the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB). The dismissals were immediate: office staff were called into a meeting, told they were fired, and escorted out of the building. Remote staff were informed over the phone in calls lasting about two minutes, before losing access to their work accounts. One of those dismissed, Will Mesilane, had to return to Australia after Rockstar withdrew his work visa sponsorship and reported the matter to immigration authorities.

Rockstar maintains the dismissals came down to gross misconduct: it says the employees shared confidential company information in a Discord channel run by the union itself. The IWGB rejects that account, arguing the firings were retaliation for union activity, and accuses the company of compiling lists of union members to discriminate against them, a practice known as blacklisting.

Back in June, a tribunal had already rejected Rockstar's attempt to strike the blacklisting allegations from the case, letting them proceed intact to this final hearing. The hearing that began September 10 is scheduled to run until October 16, barely a month before GTA VI goes on sale.

Of the 34 original dismissals, 23 former employees are actively pursuing the case. They are seeking reinstatement or financial compensation, plus a tribunal finding that the dismissals were unfair.

What is confirmed

The Glasgow Employment Tribunal opened its final hearing on September 10, 2026, scheduled to run until October 16. Rockstar dismissed 31 workers on October 30, 2025; the company attributes the firings to confidential information being shared in a union Discord channel, while the IWGB describes them as union retaliation and blacklisting. A prior ruling in June allowed the blacklisting allegations to proceed to trial. GTA VI still holds its November 19, 2026 release date, per Rockstar's official site.

What we cannot say yet

The tribunal has not yet issued a ruling on the merits, so there is no official finding on whether the dismissals were lawful. There is also no full public account of exactly what was shared in the Discord channel Rockstar points to: that only exists through fragments quoted in the legal filings themselves, not a full statement from the company.

Why it matters

It's hard to imagine a more awkward collision between launch marketing and a labor crisis. Rockstar needs the next few weeks to be about GTA VI: editions, trailers, the countdown to November 19. Instead, it's sharing headlines with a tribunal where former employees who helped build that same game describe, on the record, being pushed out in a matter of minutes. The case has already reached the UK Parliament and drawn political statements about working conditions in the industry. And as a separate piece covers, the same court filings accidentally leaked one of the best-kept secrets about GTA VI itself.