In today’s News and Commentary, a second union opposes Chuck Schumer for Senate Majority Leader, Rockstar staff vote on unionization ahead of Grand Theft Auto VI’s release, and the New Jersey Education Association faces federal investigation.

On Friday, the OPEIU became the second union to oppose Senator Chuck Schumer’s bid to become Senate Majority Leader. Earlier this week, IAM joined a growing coalition of Democratic politicians and voters alike calling on Schumer not to seek another term as Leader. Together, OPEIU and IAM members amount to roughly 700,000 workers calling for Schumer to step aside. In their letter to Schumer and the Democratic Caucus, the Machinists thanked Schumer for his allyship in Congress, calling him “a trusted friend of organized labor,” but noting that the new term “will require fresh ideas, new energy and a new generation of leadership.” Both unions expressed support for Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland to take on the role. In the letter from OPEIU’s Executive Board, the union expressed that Van Hollen was best situated to “unite the party and carry on an unapologetically bold vision for the future of this country.”

Also this week, the more than 1,600 members of staff at Rockstar Games opened the ballot to vote on unionization. Just one week after the highly-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) VI on November 19, the vote will close on whether non-director company employees should join The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB). GTA VI is expected to be “one of the bestselling games of all time,” with presales exceeding $3 billion. Its release comes 13 years after the release of its predecessor, GTA V, and four years after the official announcement that GTA VI was in active development. Over that time, around the 2018 release of Red Dead Redemption 2—another AAA game from one of Rockstar’s best known franchises—hundreds of employees came forward to expose the company’s unsustainable and grueling “frat boy” “crunch” culture. These accusations prompted Rockstar to make changes to its management in the GTA VI development studio. Nonetheless, the “no crunch” movement did not catch momentum in the UK’s video game labor movement until 2025, when ZA/UM of Disco Elysium fame became the first UK video game company to unionize. At the same time, Rockstar faced accusations of union-busting for firing more than 30 employees involved in the unionization effort. The resulting legal battle is expected to reach a verdict in the coming months, during which time IWGB and its supporters at Rockstar advocate collective bargaining as a means to achieve a say on wages, hours, benefits, and the use of AI.

Finally, federal authorities have begun an investigation into the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the largest teachers union in the state. The probe centers around the NJEA’s election spending, and in particular the tens of millions of dollars the union spent to promote the unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign of Sean Spiller, a former NJEA president. Although it is currently “unclear what potential violations are being investigated,” the super PAC “Working New Jersey” has been subpoenaed. The PAC, run by former NJEA members, was one of several that supported Spiller and was a major recipient of the over $40 million spent by the NJEA in last year’s primary race. Yet, Spiller received only 10.6 percent of the vote in the primary, finishing fifth of six Democratic candidates. Nonetheless, in October 2025, the NJEA was sued by two teachers for spending their membership dues without their consent. In July, Spiller also ran a failed campaign to be president of the NEA, the parent union of NJEA, this time without the public backing of his former union.