Rockstar Accused of Swapping Extra Time Off for Union Spying
A UK union claims Rockstar offered perks like extra holiday to staff who monitored a private union chat, as a Glasgow tribunal hears the case. Rockstar denies the allegations.
Rockstar is back in the headlines, and this time it's not about GTA 6's release date. The studio is facing some serious accusations from the UK's Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which claims the company handed out perks — including extra time off — to an employee who spied on a private union group chat.
The allegations come amid an ongoing labor dispute that kicked off after Rockstar fired more than 30 employees over the past year. That dispute is currently being heard at an employment tribunal in Glasgow. Rockstar's side of the story? Those employees were let go for leaking confidential information.
During the hearing, things got pretty spicy. A Rockstar executive was shown records of a conversation between an HR manager and an "informant." According to those messages, the manager offered the employee extra holiday in exchange for monitoring the private group. The employee said they were "looking through everything" and taking screenshots, then asked if they could take an hour off the next day — and got a casual "no problem" in response. The employee's identity has been kept out of legal documents.
Naturally, the two sides aren't seeing eye to eye. The union is calling the firings the most blatant and ruthless case of union busting in gaming history. Rockstar, on the other hand, says the allegations are "baseless" and claims it doesn't even know whether the fired workers were union members — though it does admit to having accessed the group's public channels. The informant reportedly stayed in the group for around two and a half years, and a senior Rockstar HR exec has denied the company ever "collected information."
The tribunal is still ongoing and is expected to wrap up on November 18. We'll be keeping an eye on how this one plays out — it's a case that could have some big implications for how studios handle union activity going forward.
What do you make of all this? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.
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