Employment Law Digest November 2025: Employment Rights Bill: The future of trade union rights

3rd November, 2025

The Employment Rights Bill is expected to receive Royal Assent in November 2025. It is currently in the final stages of parliamentary approval, with the House of Lords having considered the latest draft on 28 October 2025. We are therefore expecting some of the changes to come into effect later this year.

There are a number of provisions in the ERB setting out major reforms, which are intended to modernise the workplace whilst strengthening protection for workers through trade union rights. Our experts Edward Nuttman and Hollie Ball look at these in more detail and discuss the implications for employers in their recent webinar. For those of you who haven’t yet watched the webinar, this can be accessed here.

This article summarises the key take aways from the webinar, some of which have potentially far reaching consequences for trade union rights and influence in the workplace.

Duty to inform employees

One of the key changes is that employers will be under a new legal duty to inform employees of their right to join a trade union on commencement of employment. This applies whether or not the employer recognises a union. The information must be given to the employee at the same time as providing the ‘Section 1’ written statement of employment and failure to comply with the new duty may result in a compensatory award of two or four weeks pay.

This change has potential far reaching significance for the influence of trade unions in the workplace: the duty brings to the attention something that employees may not have previously considered.

Increased protection for employees

Changes will also see enhanced protection being rolled out to union members, who will receive enhanced protection against:

Blacklisting (whereby employers discriminate against employees based on their trade union activities);
Detriment for partaking in industrial action.
Dismissal for industrial action – offering enhanced protection compared to the existing 12 week protected period.

Rights of access to the workplace

The Employment Rights Bill also grants trade unions greater rights to access the workplace to carry out union activities. They will be given stronger rights to physically access the workplace and to communicate with employees for ‘access purposes’ which are:

to meet, support, represent, recruit or organise workers (regardless of whether they are members of a trade union); and
to facilitate collective bargaining.

Notably, the act of organising industrial action is not one of the ‘access purposes’.

The ERB introduces a new process which will structure how access requests are made:

The union will make an access request to the employer, setting out the proposed terms of access in a prescribed form;
The employer will issue a response notice within a specified period of time, setting out whether it agrees and its reasons for objecting;
The parties will enter a negotiation period to agree written terms of which the union will have access and notify the CAC.

The CAC oversees the application process and can impose financial penalties. The union can apply to the CAC for determination if:

negotiations fail;
the employer fails to provide a response notice in time or;
the employer breaches the access agreement.

In determining the mater CAC will take into account the access principles and the right for parties to be heard. Any appeals will be dealt with by the EAT.

Compulsory recognition

The ERB introduces new measures which will make it easier for trade unions to be recognised by an employer as follows:

The union will need to demonstrate that a lower percentage of workers (to be set between 2-10%) in the bargaining unit are members of the union, whereas currently that percentage is set at 10%;
The current requirement for a union to show likely majority support before a ballot will be removed; and
The requirement for a majority of the total workforce in the bargaining unit to vote in favour of recognition will be removed, making a simple majority of the votes cast sufficient.

When will the proposed changes take effect?

Employers are advised to stay informed about the ERB implementation schedule to ensure their policies remain up-to-date with the upcoming changes. The government has outlined the following timeline for key reforms:

Immediately after the bill is passed (or within two months):

Repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and most provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016.
Employees gain protection from dismissal related to participation in industrial action.

April 2026:

Updates to the trade union recognition process.
Introduction of electronic balloting for workplace votes.

October 2026:

New safeguards for trade union representatives.
Establishment of trade unions’ right of access to workplaces.

April 2027:

Launch of a modern industrial relations framework, including mandatory recognition procedures and clear access principles.

As with the rest of the Employment Rights Bill, this is an ever changing landscape and we will be issuing further updates as we see further developments. If you have any queries please contact your usual legal advisor, or for further information contact our Employment Team.