ERA reforms in depth: Industrial relations

The government plans to implement changes to the statutory recognition process in April 2026, with the new right of access, extended protections for trade union representatives and the duty to inform workers of their right to join a union all coming into force in October 2026.

Current position

Employers have limited obligations in terms of notifying workers of their right to join a trade union/their rights as a union member. Equally, there is currently no general right for trade unions to access workplaces for the purposes of recruitment and organisation.

The current thresholds for obtaining formal statutory recognition can sometimes be challenging for trade unions, particularly within workforces where there is no widespread appetite for trade union recognition.

What is changing?

The key industrial relations reforms set out within the Act are outlined below:

• A new duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union via a written statement at the outset of employment and at other ‘prescribed times’.
• Trade unions will have a right to access for the purposes of meeting, recruiting or organising workers or facilitating collective bargaining. Access for these purposes means physical entry into a workplace and/or communication with workers by any means (including digital access). Such access will be organised through legally enforceable ‘access agreements’, either agreed between the employer and trade union or, where the union and employer are unable to agree, as determined by the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC). The statutory process for implementing ‘access agreements’ will be set out in separate regulations and the government has launched a consultation into the process, as detailed below. The government has stated it is committed to working with stakeholders to make sure that the new right of access is effectively enforced – as part of the consultation into access agreements, it is seeking views on proposed powers for the CAC to issue fines of up to £75,000 for non-compliance with access agreements.
• The hurdles trade unions need to overcome for statutory recognition will be lowered by:
  • removing the application requirement to show likely majority support for recognition in the chosen bargaining unit (BU).
  • removing the requirement at the ballot stage to show 40% support of the BU.
  • potentially reducing the initial threshold for union membership in the BU from 10% to as low as 2%.
• The existing rights for trade union officials to take time off for various union activities will be extended to include a new group of trade union ‘equality’ representatives. These rights to time off will also be strengthened to provide that it will be for the employer to demonstrate that requested ‘time off’ was not reasonable and to introduce an additional requirement for employers to provide ‘such accommodation or facilities as are reasonable in the circumstances’ for carrying out the relevant trade union activities that the official is taking the time off for.

Consultations into the right of trade unions to access workplaces and the duty to inform workers of right to join a union were launched on 23 October 2025. Both of these consultations will close on 18 December 2025. We have set out some headline points from those consultations below:

• Consultation into access agreements – This sets out the government’s proposals on the form that a union’s access request should take and the details that the union would be required to include in that request as well as the details that the employer would be required to include in its response. The consultation also outlines the government’s proposals for the timescales that would apply where a union has requested access. These proposed timescales are very tight – the employer would only have 5 working days within which to respond to an access request and, if the request is rejected, the parties would only have 15 working days within which to negotiate. If either party wishes to refer the matter to the CAC, this would need to be done within 25 working days of the access request being made.
  
  There is also a proposed exemption for employers with fewer than 21 employers which, if implemented, would be a welcome relief for small employers.
• Consultation into the duty to inform workers of their right to join a union – The government sets out its proposals relating to the form and content of the notification that employers will be required to provide to workers regarding their right to join a union – this includes a proposal for the government to provide a standard form statement, detailing the functions of a trade union, statutory rights relating to union membership and a signpost to gov.uk page listing trade unions. Each employer would then tailor the standard form statement with workplace-specific details such as which trade unions are recognised by that employer. As well as providing the statement directly to new workers at the outset of their employment, the government proposes that employers should redeliver the statement annually (albeit it also consults on the potential for the reminder statement to be provided to existing workers indirectly, for example via a noticeboard or staff portal).

Alongside changes to the industrial action regime, these proposed changes will mean that trade unions have a larger role to play in employee relations.

In advance of the changes coming into force, employers should assess their employee relations strategy, particularly if they do not currently recognise trade unions. They should assess how they engage with their staff on a collective level and give their workers a ‘voice’. In doing so, employers should potentially consider putting in place other employee bodies such as forums and councils if they feel they would be more representative of their workforce.