Final Code Of Practice On New Union Right To Access Workplaces Published, Ready For 30 October Commencement

The ERA 2025 will give independent trade unions a new right to request access to an employer's workplaces to meet, recruit, support, represent, organise, or facilitate collective bargaining for workers (but not to organise industrial action), without needing to show any minimum level of support or membership (and provided the employer and its associated employers together have at least 21 workers in aggregate across their workplaces). Where a union and employer have failed to reach an access agreement on a voluntary basis, a legislative framework will provide for a statutory request and negotiation period and, if not agreed, for the union to apply to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) for an order for access.

This new right will apply from 30 October 2026, giving employers just over three months to prepare. The government has now published its response to consultation on the statutory Code of Practice on the Right of Trade Unions to Access Workplaces, discussed in our blog post here, along with a revised version of the Code and two accompanying sets of regulations now laid before parliament. 

The government has made various changes to the Code to improve clarity, cover more complex access arrangements involving more than one union, and simplify the (optional) templates for making and responding to requests. It intends to review the framework within six months and will consult on potential changes in early Spring 2027.

Key changes in the final Code include:

• The Code now makes express that there is no obligation on unions to seek to agree access voluntarily before applying under the statutory regime.
• The presumption in favour of the CAC granting access is now more clearly stated, as is the potential for access agreements to include a combination of engagement methods, both physical and digital.
• Employers are encouraged to publish (ideally on their website) an email address specifically for unions to use to send requests; in the absence of this, a union may use any other publicly available general email address. (The earlier draft's reference to considering email encryption and using other methods such as post, if email is not practicable, have been removed.)
• The Code makes clear that minor or accidental errors in a union's application should not be treated as grounds for the employer to reject it, and the parties should work together to correct errors.
• It is suggested that unions may wish to request information from an employer ahead of making an application, for example as to the locations of workers. Employers are expected to engage constructively with such requests and proactively update unions when locations change.
• It is made clear that the 15 working day period for the employer to respond runs from the day the application is given and not when it reaches the correct person or team within the employer. Employers should therefore put appropriate internal processes in place before 30 October, to ensure that any access requests are identified and triaged immediately on receipt.
• The Code now expressly states that, if rejecting a request, the employer must set out its reasons for doing so in as much detail as possible, and must provide as much relevant and useful information as possible. Where applicable, this would include explaining why the employer believes that a request for access contains terms that will unreasonably interfere with business or will require unreasonable steps to facilitate access.
• Negotiations should be in good faith, and the appointment of lead negotiators is suggested. The original option of one party applying to the CAC to extend the 25 day negotiation period has been removed. Parties unable to reach agreement have 55 working days from the date the request was given to apply to the CAC, though the CAC can extend this to 70 days where it was not reasonably practicable to apply within the time limit.
• The Code makes clear that where one or more of the workers subject to the access request is covered by a recognised union, ongoing statutory recognition process, or operative statutory access agreement, the CAC may refuse access to those workers specifically but can still impose an access agreement for any other workers. 
• It is now stated that the CAC 'must' (rather than 'can') regard weekly access (or less frequent access at the union's desire) as a model term and as not unreasonably interfering with the employer's business. 
• The Code now makes clear that access should not be granted at a time when the employer knows or arranges that a significant number of workers can’t attend, and that the duration of access should be a reasonable time to allow for effective communication. It is also made express that access should usually be during normal working hours and workers attending access meetings should be paid in full.
• An employers should offer the union use of the typical methods of communication adopted by the employer, but the union may request other methods too. Employers should be sufficiently flexible to ensure there is access to workers with atypical working patterns, but this would not extend to paying the travel costs for workers to attend meetings.
• There is no longer an expectation that unions invite managers and supervisors to attend access meetings unless this would be unreasonable. Such employees should only attend if invited.
•  A new provision states that employers should not seek to record online meetings, monitor the attendance of online meetings, or monitor worker engagement with digital communications sent on behalf of the trade union (for example, by tracking which workers have opened the email or engaged with hyperlinks contained in the email). This will require employers to review their standard email and intranet analytics practices where union communications are cascaded through employer systems. The Code also notes that where cascading information digitally, this should be done in a stand-alone format and must not be buried in a wider workforce update. If an email is cascaded on behalf of a union, the union should be copied in for confirmation purposes.
• The Code now expressly notes that enforcement action can be taken in relation to third parties where access is required at third party premises. 
• The CAC is given discretion whether to group multiple breaches of an access agreement as a single complaint or separate complaints (for which additional separate and higher fines could be issued up to the maximum of £500,000 for the third and each subsequent complaint). The level of penalty is to be proportionate to the breach, with maximum penalties for deliberate obstruction of access and lower or no penalty for breaches of much lower gravity. 
• Summary tables have been added to the Code but should be treated with caution as they are not wholly consistent with the text.

Interestingly, the government suggests in its Impact Assessment that access agreements are unlikely, on average, to involve 10 or more meetings with all workers covered by agreements during paid working time and therefore it anticipates that the direct employer cost of such meetings will be limited. The government also envisages that only a small proportion of employers will be affected each year, principally larger private sector employers. It considers that voluntary access agreements are likely to remain unions' preferred option, with statutory access used where employers are resistant or reluctant to engage with unions, and workers are interested in union representation.

What employers should do now

Employers likely to attract union interest should review their preparation for this new right in light of the final Code:

• Establish an internal request handling process, covering email receipt, logging and responding within the 15-working day window. Consider how information on workforce locations and working patterns could be made available to unions.
• Plan what level of access would be workable, in light of existing visitor arrangements, available facilities, existing communication methods, workforce locations and working patterns. Are there convincing reasons for any red lines? Would particular provisions minimize disruption if negotiable, eg limiting access during particularly busy periods, or only allowing a certain proportion of a team to attend any one meeting? Also consider the potential for requests in relation to access to third parties' staff on your premises, or to your staff on a third party's premises. 
• Review what steps might be needed to ensure privacy of meetings and digital communications (eg, can any tracking mechanisms be disapplied, how would employee consent be handled). Consider possible instructions for visiting union officials, for example covering security, health and safety, or prevention of harassment. 
• Determine who would be responsible for each part of the process and ensure appropriate training and guidance is available.
• Develop a workforce communication strategy, potentially to stress the advantages of any current employee engagement structures and/or to explain the new right to the workforce. 
• In some cases employers may want to consider proactively entering into discussions to seek to agree a more business-friendly, voluntary access arrangement, not subject to CAC enforcement powers.

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