For years, the influence of trade unions has been steadily eroded through a combination of legislation and shifting societal attitudes to the point where their presence is now absent from many workplaces.
The Employment Rights Act is set to change things by introducing a range of measures to empower trade unions throughout 2026 and into 2027.
Whether your business has dealt with trade unions in the past or not, it is worth understanding what is set to change and why an effective HR strategy may become more important.
How is the Employment Rights Act changing the rules for trade unions?
Changes to the rules around trade union activity, recognition and activity have already begun to change, with further updates happening in August 2026.
These aim to simplify the process of recognising a trade union, make it easier for members by removing certain balloting thresholds and lessen some restrictions on industrial action.
However, if a trade union is not present in your workplace, then many of these changes will pass you by.
This is why October 2026 will be significant for every business that employs staff, as this will be when employers become legally obligated to engage with trade unions.
If you are an employer, you will need to inform your workers that they have a right to join a trade union and ensure that you work with trade unions to give them access to your workplace.
Trade unions can seek digital and physical access and should be permitted to do so.
They are at liberty to meet, recruit and represent your employees even if those employees had previous allegiances to other trade unions.
When a member of your team becomes a trade union representative, you will then need to accommodate this role, including giving them paid time off to complete training for the union.
Protections for workers who are part of trade unions will properly take effect in 2027.
At this point, it will be explicitly forbidden to backlist or discriminate against an employee purely for trade union membership.
Alongside this protection for workers, there is also a new framework being established that should help employers and trade unions work better together.
How should my business prepare for the change with trade unions?
Many employers will not have had to engage with trade unions for a while, if at all, while others might have grown accustomed to their limited influence.
Either way, trade unions are likely to play a more significant role in many businesses across the country in only a few months' time.
As such, now is the time to prepare so that you are not on the back foot when they do attempt to make contact with your employees.
You should begin preparing your communications about trade union membership soon to ensure that it meets the requirements of the Employment Rights Act.
More importantly, beginning conversations with employees may give you a sense of how a trade union presence would affect your workplace.
If you are aware of ongoing issues that employees regularly face, it may be worth addressing these before the trade union presence is established.
This can help you appear proactive in addressing the concerns of employees rather than reactive to the demands of a trade union.
If you are concerned that a trade union may make unreasonable demands, rest assured that there are means of negotiating, such as through mediation, that can allow an amicable solution to be found.
What will be important is having your own HR support to ensure that employees' concerns can be dealt with and that trade union expectations and obligations are managed.
Our outsourced HR service is here to take the burden away from your in-house staff so that they have more time to do the work that matters.
We can review your processes and procedures to ensure you are compliant and help to manage employee challenges so that you are ready for the arrival of trade unions.
To ensure you are ready for the new role trade unions will play in your business, speak to our team for professional HR support.