UNISON is today (Tuesday) celebrating the passing of the Employment Rights Bill by Parliament – heralding what the union believes will be a bright new era for workers’ rights in Britain.
The bill is now expected to receive Royal Assent on Thursday, when it becomes the Employment Rights Act. The new legislation, which has been described by the union as ‘groundbreaking’, ‘transformative’ and ‘a gamechanger’, covers a raft of new rights, both individual and collective.
These range from improved pregnancy, maternity and paternity rights and day one sick leave, to curbs on exploitative zero-hours contracts and unscrupulous fire and rehire practices, to greater protection from unfair dismissal, improved facility time for union reps and the lifting of the many constraints on union activity imposed by Tory governments.
While the vast majority of the new act will not apply in Northern Ireland, where employment and trade union laws are set by Stormont, new employment rights legislation is due to come before the Northern Ireland Assembly early in 2026. UNISON will seek to ensure that progressive reforms to workers’ rights in Northern Ireland are taken forward as swiftly as possible.
The Employment Rights Act represents a massive accomplishment for UNISON itself, after years of campaigning, lobbying and intense negotiations by activists, senior lay members, staff members and the group of Labour MPs with links to the union.
Welcoming the news from Parliament, UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “This is going to change working lives for the better. Every employee will now be able to enjoy the rights that only those working for good employers previously enjoyed.
“There were times when it felt like we’d never get here. But the bill has now finally become an act and workers at last have something to celebrate. Good employers won’t need to change the way they treat their staff. But bad employers are going to have to smarten up their act – and quickly.”
Today’s approval by the Lords saw the passing of a bill that was introduced by the Labour government last October and has survived the best efforts of Tory and Liberal Democrat Lords to sabotage its progress.
As with all new legislation, implementation will take place over a period of time. The government has produced a ‘road map’ for when each new change in the act will find its way into workplaces.
But with Royal Assent comes one immediate reform: the repeal of the former Tory government’s controversial Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, which allowed employers in key public services to force specific people to work on strike days.
Then, roughly two months after Royal Assent, around February 2026, the majority of the Trade Union Act 2016 will be repealed and replaced, paving the way for a better relationship between central government and unions that will prevent the need for strikes. These changes will include:
- a reduction in the notice period for taking industrial action from 14 days to 10, making it quicker and easier to take action
- The validity of a strike ballot extended from six months to 12
- The removal of picketing restrictions
- Simplification of ballot notices
- Removal of the requirement for facility time to be published
- Protections against dismissal for taking industrial action, to ensure workers can defend their rights without fear of losing their jobs.
April will see a raft of improvements to individual rights, with more reforms in the months that follow. Some of these changes will require secondary legislation – a normal part of the UK’s legislative process, ensuring that all parties involved both understand and implement the changes.
UNISON will continue to be active during this period, to ensure every beneficial new law reaches the workplace intact. The union will scrutinise the secondary legislation and the government’s intended codes of practice, to ensure they do not water down these landmark improvements.
Christina McAnea is clear, too, that ministers need to remain focussed on the funding required to implement the new laws.
“Improvements rarely happen for free,” she said. “Funding is now essential, so the new rights can be enforced through a fair work agency that has teeth. The same is true for the fair pay agreement if it’s to deliver higher rates of pay across care and start to turn the troubled sector around.”
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