In brief
The Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025) finally received Royal Assent and became law on 18 December 2025. It represents what the government has described as “the biggest upgrade of workers’ rights in a generation” and includes a raft of changes to the current industrial relations framework.
This article, published in International Employment Lawyer on 20 January 2026, covers a number of the key changes, some of which will apply from as early as February 2026.
In depth
Increasing trade union rights
The Department for Business and Trade reported in May this year that the proportion of UK employees who are trade union members (22% in 2024) is the lowest on record. The government is introducing two changes which may well turn the tide on dwindling union membership rates.
The most material change for many organisations is the new right of access. Under the new rules, unions will be able to request an “access agreement” granting union officials access to an employer’s workforce. Access means both physical entry to the workplace and digital access to workers.
Union officers will be allowed to request access to meet, support, represent, recruit or organise workers, and to facilitate collective bargaining, but not to organise industrial action. If an employer fails to respond to a union’s request for access, or negotiations on an access agreement are unsuccessful, unions may apply to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) for a determination.
The government consultation on these changes closed in December 2025, and we are expecting the new rules to come into effect in October 2026. To manage limited resources, unions will need to decide where to focus their attention, which may well include industries or large employers which have not traditionally had much union engagement.
Employers will have to provide workers with a written statement informing them of the right to join a union at the start of their employment and at other prescribed times. We are waiting for secondary legislation to confirm the content and form of the statement, and how frequently and in what manner it should be provided. These points formed part of the government consultation which closed in December 2025. It is expected that this will apply with effect from October 2026.
Simplifying the industrial action process
Under current rules, before taking industrial action: (i) at least 50% of all eligible union members must turn out to vote, (ii) a majority of union members who vote must vote in favour, and (iii) in ballots of “important public services” workers, at least 40% of all union eligible members must vote in favour.
From 18 February 2026, the 40% support requirement for important public service workers will be removed. It is expected that the 50% turnout requirement will be removed in April 2026 along with the introduction of electronic balloting. At that point, it will just leave the requirement that a majority of union members who vote must vote in favour of industrial action for it to be lawful, thereby lowering the bar.
Electronic balloting will likely be introduced in April 2026. This is long-awaited for many who consider the current rules on statutory union ballots (which require postal balloting or, in limited cases, workplace balloting) to be outdated. The government consultation on a proposed code of practice on electronic and workplace balloting is open until 28 January 2026.
Also, with effect from 18 February 2026:
- Unions with a mandate for industrial action will need to provide the employer with 10 days’ notice of such action (down from the current 14 days);
- Notices no longer need to include the number of employees in each category that are expected to take part in the action; and
- The mandate for industrial action will automatically expire 12 months after the date of the ballot (up from the current six or nine months with union and employer agreement).
ERA 2025 also gives workers stronger protections against being dismissed or being subjected to detriment for taking part in industrial action.
Simplifying the statutory recognition process
ERA 2025 relaxes the statutory process that unions need to follow to be recognised by employers for collective bargaining purposes. It’s possible that this could lead to more employers receiving statutory recognition requests. The government intended to consult on these proposals in autumn 2025, with new provisions coming into force in April 2026, but we are still waiting for the consultation to be published.
Under current rules, before accepting a union’s application for recognition, the CAC must be satisfied that at least 10% of workers in the bargaining unit are union members. ERA 2025 provides for regulations (not yet published) to amend this threshold to anything between 2% and 10%. In addition, the requirement for the CAC to be satisfied that the majority of workers in the bargaining unit would likely support the union conducting collective bargaining on their behalf will be removed.
The requirement at the ballot stage for at least 40% of workers in the bargaining unit to vote in favour of recognition will also be removed. That will just leave the requirement that a majority of union members who vote must vote in favour of recognition for the union to achieve recognition, a much lower threshold than operates today.
There are also proposed changes to the recognition process itself. If an employer rejects a union’s request for recognition or fails to respond to a request, the union may apply to the CAC for an order for recognition.
ERA 2025 will require employers to provide information about the workers in a bargaining unit within five working days of being notified by the CAC about a trade union’s application for recognition. To meet this short deadline, employers will need to be organised with lists of the names, dates of births, and worker category of each worker in the relevant bargaining unit.
If the CAC accepts a union’s request for recognition and notifies the parties of the need for a recognition ballot, there will be a new 20-working day window for the parties to agree on arrangements for the union to access workers of the bargaining unit. The CAC will have powers to adjudicate on those arrangements. This is likely to reduce what can currently be a lengthy negotiation period before a ballot takes place.
ERA 2025 also cracks down on unfair practices conducted with a view to influencing the outcome of a recognition application taken by either the employer or the union. This includes:
- An extension of the period in which unfair practices are prohibited;
- A block on employers increasing the number of employees in a proposed bargaining unit to dilute the level of trade union membership; and
- An extension of the time limit for bringing a complaint of unfair practice during the balloting process, so that complaints must be brought within five working days of the end of the ballot (rather than the current "before the first working day after the closure of the recognition ballot").
There is also a new provision that will allow a statutory recognition application to continue even if the employer subsequently enters into a voluntary agreement with a non-independent “sweetheart” union after the statutory recognition application commenced.
What should employers do?
The changes introduced by ERA 2025 mark a real shift in the industrial relations landscape. As a result, employees are more likely to be aware of trade unions and their role, and employers are more likely to have to engage with union requests for access and potentially recognition, including in industries which have not been highly unionised historically.
Employers should review their existing union relationships and industrial relations strategy. Employers should also inform internal stakeholders of their rights and obligations in the event of requests from unions and keep a close eye on how the right of access, in particular, develops.