How UK Employers Can Prepare for New Trade Union Rights That Take Effect in October

Effective October 2026, the UK’s Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025) will introduce a general statutory right for trade unions to access workplaces in Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland).

This alert explains what the new right entails, why it is a significant development, which businesses are affected and what steps employers should be taking now, including US-headquartered employers with relevant operations.

1. What Is the New Trade Union Right of Access?

Who has the right of access

The ERA 2025 creates a free-standing statutory right for qualifying independent trade unions to access workplaces for specified purposes. The right of access applies even if the employer is not unionised and its workers are not union members. A trade union need only be a qualifying independent union (i.e., a union listed on the Certification Officer’s list and holding a certificate of independence) that has followed the ERA 2025 process.

The nature and purpose of the access

The new law gives unions a right of access to meet, represent, recruit and organise workers, and to facilitate collective bargaining, but expressly excludes organising industrial action.

Trade unions are entitled to seek both physical entry to a workplace and a right to communicate with workers, including digital communications such as all-staff emails, although disclosure of individual worker contact details to a union must comply with the requirements of UK data protection law.

How the statutory process operates

• Union access request: A trade union submits an access request to the employer using a prescribed form.
• Employer response: The employer has up to 15 working days to respond with a formal response notice.
• Agreement: The parties then have 25 working days to negotiate and agree written terms of access.
• CAC determination: If no agreement is reached, either party may refer the matter within 15 working days to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the UK’s specialist tribunal for collective employment disputes. The CAC decides whether and on what terms access should be granted, balancing the union’s right of access against the employer’s right to operate without unreasonable interference.

Access agreements (whether agreed or determined by the CAC) last no longer than two years (unless renewed) and cannot be unilaterally amended or revoked by either party. “Model terms” published by the government contemplate access of up to weekly frequency.

Employers must make available reasonable existing facilities (e.g. meeting rooms and use of communication channels) but are not required to make significant structural or IT changes. Digital and virtual access may also available.

In April 2026, following consultation, the UK government published a draft statutory “Code of Practice: Right of trade unions to access workplaces,” setting out guidance on how the statutory process will work. The final statutory Code of Practice and regulations setting out the details of the application, response and agreement processes and the factors the CAC must consider when making determinations, are expected to come into force in October 2026.

Enforcement and penalties

Breaches of an access agreement or CAC determination may be the subject of a complaint to the CAC.

The CAC can order specified remedial steps and, on repeated noncompliance, impose escalating and substantial financial penalties designed to incentivise compliance:

• up to £75,000 for a first penalty;
• up to £150,000 for a second penalty; and
• up to £500,000 for a third or subsequent penalty under the same access agreement.

Appeals can be filed with the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

2. Which Businesses Are Affected

Employers with 21 or more workers in Great Britain, whether directly or through a subsidiary or branch, are within scope. Only those with fewer than 21 fall outside the scope of the new trade union right of access.

For this purpose, workers of “associated employers” (i.e., companies in the same group) in Great Britain are aggregated. For example, a subsidiary in England with 10 workers may still be in scope if another group company in Scotland employs 11 or more workers.

Employers with no physical workplace, such as those with a remote workforce, remain within scope, as unions retain the right to seek digital access (i.e., a right to communicate with workers). Further guidance on how a purely virtual arrangement will be assessed for reasonableness is expected in the forthcoming Code of Practice and secondary legislation.

The right applies regardless of sector, existing union presence or prior trade union recognition, so sectors with historically low union density (e.g., technology, professional services, retail and hospitality) will be as exposed as traditionally unionised industries. Indeed, it is anticipated that trade unions may focus on these sectors to build a presence and garner support.

Most US multinationals with operations in Great Britain will fall within scope, as will many smaller US companies with even a modest relevant workforce.

3. Why the New Trade Union Right of Access to the Workplace Is Significant

Trade unions in Great Britain have not previously had a general statutory right to enter an employer’s premises or communicate with the whole of its workforce. Furthermore, the new right forms part of a wider package of pro-collective bargaining reforms, including recent and proposed changes making it easier for unions to gain statutory recognition.

Statutory recognition is the process by which a union establishes a right to conduct collective bargaining with an employer on behalf of a bargaining unit (i.e., either the whole workplace or certain groups of employees in certain roles within the workplace), which requires a threshold level of membership support and, in most cases, majority support in a workplace ballot.

From April 6, 2026, the ERA 2025:

• removed the requirement for a union to demonstrate the likelihood of majority support for recognition when making its application for statutory recognition;
• gave the government power to introduce regulations to lower the current 10% bargaining unit membership threshold for a recognition application to a “required percentage,” which may be as low as 2%; and
• removed the requirement for recognition ballots to achieve 40% support from the entire bargaining unit; now, only a simple majority of those who actually vote is required.

Taken together, these reforms lower the barriers to union recognition, and the new right of access gives unions the means to build the membership and support needed to achieve it.

4. What Businesses Should Do Now

With the right of access expected to come into force in October 2026, employers should begin preparing now:

• Assess whether your headcount in Great Britain puts you within scope.
  Aggregate worker numbers across all relevant group entities, per the associated employer test, to determine whether the 21-worker threshold is met.
• Review existing arrangements.
  For employers that already have voluntary access arrangements with trade unions, review these as these may need updating or formalising under the new statutory framework.
• Raise awareness and train management and site teams.
  Ensure that premises managers, security and reception staff, and relevant HR personnel, understand the new right and know how to respond and escalate requests appropriately, as an inappropriate refusal could trigger a CAC complaint and escalating penalties.
• Develop internal protocols.
  Establish a clear process, assigning responsibility (often to HR or employee relations) for receiving, escalating and responding to access requests within the statutory 15 working-day window.
• Identify credible grounds for refusing or limiting access.
  Identify in each workplace specific factors that could support refusing (which will generally be difficult) or narrowing a request, such as an existing recognition agreement or application, an existing access agreement, genuine areas of concerns regarding business disruption, confidentiality, law-enforcement, national security, or health and safety risks. Collate evidence in support of these concerns, so that any refusal can be evidenced as reasonable if referred to the CAC.
• Identify existing facilities and site protocols.
  Identify the meeting rooms, communication channels, and security, safeguarding, and health and safety procedures (e.g., DBS checks, inductions, sign-in requirements) already required or available at each site. Employers need only make reasonable use of existing facilities and are not required to make structural or IT changes.
• Prepare for virtual-only access requests.
  Employers with a wholly, predominantly or partly remote workforce should identify which digital channels (e.g., company email, intranet, video-conferencing) could reasonably be offered in place of physical entry, since remote working will not exempt a business from an access request.
• Consider data protection implications.
  Ensure your data protection policies and privacy notices address disclosure of applicable workforce contact details to unions and comply with UK GDPR. Consider whether your existing lawful bases for processing data cover disclosure to unions and whether your data protection impact assessments need to be updated.
• Take advice from counsel.
  Given that secondary legislation, a Code of Practice and further guidance are expected, and the tight statutory timeframes (15 working days to respond, then 25 to negotiate), work with your employment counsel in Great Britain to ensure you are ready to deal with any access request.
• Consider your broader employee engagement strategy.
  Strong employee relations may reduce the likelihood of unions targeting your workplace or make the access process easier to manage if they do.

Next Steps

McGuireWoods continues to monitor the progress of the secondary legislation and Code of Practice as the October 2026 commencement date approaches. For questions about how the new right of access may affect your operations in Great Britain, or if you would like assistance in developing internal protocols or training materials, contact the authors.