Employment Rights Bill | Trade Unions

The Employment Rights Act brings stronger Trade Union rights, including workplace access, updated recognition rules, and protections against detrimental treatment for industrial action.

UPDATE - February 2026

Following the government’s updated implementation timeline, we now expect these changes to come into effect as follows:

18 February 2026

The repeal of the great majority of the Trade Union Act 2016, thereby simplifying requirements on trade unions, including in relation to industrial action and political funds

• Removing the 10-year ballot requirement for trade union political funds
• Simplifying industrial action notices and industrial action ballot notices
• Protections against dismissal for taking industrial action.

6 April 2026

• Simplifying trade union recognition process

August 2026

• Electronic and workplace balloting for Statutory Trade Union Ballots

October 2026

• Strengthening trade unions’ right of access
• Unfair practices in the trade union recognition process
• New rights and protections for trade union representatives
• Extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action
• The duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union

The government is consulting on the proposed revised Code of Practice wording covering recognition and derecognition and seeks views on unfair practices in electronic ballots. The consultation closes on 1 April 2026.

January 2026 Update - Confirmed finalised rules on trade unions

The Act has finalised, and the final rules on collective rights and trade unions include:

• Right for trade unions to access workplaces for recruitment and organising purposes. This will include digital/virtual access (with detail to be set out in regulations).
• New duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union.
• Reduced threshold for unions to secure statutory trade union recognition, will  remove the current threshold of 40% of all workers in the bargaining unit voting for recognition. It could be reduced to as low as 2% of the proposed bargaining unit.
• Reforms to strike action will make it easier for unions to secure mandates for industrial action. Including removing the 50% turnout threshold for strike action, reducing the notice period required from trade unions to employers for industrial action from 14 days. The Bill originally decreased this to 7 days, but it has settled on 10 days. Mandates for action have also been increased from 6 months to 12 months.
• Repeal of previous restrictions on calling industrial action, such as minimum service levels in certain sectors.

A draft code of practice for electronic and workplace balloting in statutory union ballots has been created. Further details can be found here.

The consultation on the draft code and workplace ballots is open, and will close on 28 January 2026.