After Rockstar brass suggested earlier this month that they’d be open to letting workers have a union if they really wanted one, workers and the company have hashed out a voting period.

This sentence confuses me. Are the rules different in the UK? Can the company choose to veto a union? In the US, if enough workers sign a public statement saying they support a union, the company can choose to voluntarily recognize the union without a vote. The vote only happens if the company chooses to oppose it (which they usually do here).