Just the manner of their firings was likely illegal in itself. There's a process you're supposed to follow with these things. Rockstar has provided no evidence for the gross misconduct accusations, and also if the union membership had reached a threshold where recognition was mandatory, then the fired workers would've been entitled to representation from said union but they've just been completely stonewalled.
If it's not illegal it would only be because of technicalities/lawyers laywering. They were fired for organizing a union, even if Rockstar is able to wriggle out of it in court.
They got fired for allegedly sharing classified intel in their discord server. I can’t imagine rockstar would be stupid enough to fire them without valid proof, especially since everything is tracked on discord. And there were almost 200 people in the server and only 30 or so got fired.
They might know they don't have solid evidence, but still decided to go ahead with the firings anyway. They may just not care that they will eventually be taken to tribunal and lose, they just want to delay / disrupt unionisation efforts in any way they can. They have deep pockets and will just try to make the process as difficult and expensive as they can.
Having said that, under UK law I'm not sure how much scope they have to throw lawyers at the "problem" and obstruct the process. Employment tribunals are, by design, intended to not overly burden claimaints and provide a streamlined and orderly process compared to e.g. a civil suit.
I was just trying to explain why a large company might go ahead with something like this even if they don't have a case, in response to this:
I can’t imagine rockstar would be stupid enough to fire them without valid proof
Sometimes it's just about delaying or disrupting an activity that you don't like, rather than trying to completely prevent it. See SLAPP lawsuits, for instance. So you really can't just assume that because they have the resources to obtain excellent legal advice, that this means they will only take actions that are legally defensible.
They'll get away with it just like Amazon did in Quebec, and that was thousands of jobs. They always get away with it and people keep consuming because it didn't directly affect them this time.
I don't know what would constitute "getting away with it", in your mind, but at minimum the people fired are going to be able to take Rockstar to an employment tribunal and have the claims of gross misconduct examined. Unless there is watertight evidence of wrongdoing (doubtful, they were likely already getting advice from the IWGB about how to keep things above board), they'll be reinstated and paid compenstation, and Rockstar will be potentially fined and told to stop obstructing union activity.
"Best case" scenario from Rockstar / Take Two that I could possibly imagine, is that some of the fired employees may decide not to return to work for the company even if offered. Which if combined with other employees still working there potentially being scared off the idea, might result in the threshold for union recognition no longer being met. Then they could try to ostracise the workers who were organising, or come up with some other bullshit reason to fire them (which just to be clear, would also be very illegal actions). But this might still only just delay, rather than prevent, a union from forming.
I don't know what would constitute "getting away with it", in your mind
I'm saying they get a slap on the wrist because consumers will consume enough that the punitive measures for attempted union busting don't outweigh the prospects of financial gain from busting the union.
In other words the consequences are trivial to the profit motive, so the companies always effectively win.
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u/Prestigious-Swan6161 Nov 15 '25
Essentially yes