A new duty to tell workers they can join a trade union was due this month, the government's own roadmap says. Its own consultation response moved the date to January five weeks ago, and the roadmap was never corrected.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
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In short. Section 58 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 creates a duty on every employer in Great Britain to give workers a written statement telling them they have the right to join a trade union [1]. The government's own foreword to its October 2025 consultation said the intention was "for this duty on employers to start by October 2026" [2] (p.2). Its formal response to that consultation, published 25 September 2026, moved the date to January 2027 [3] (p.4). Five weeks later, the Department for Business and Trade's live implementation roadmap, updated the same day as the companion document that gets the date right, still lists the duty under "Measures that will take effect in October 2026" [4]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
This site has tested three other provisions of the Employment Rights Act 2025 against the Department for Business and Trade's implementation documents this month: the trade union access regulations on 20 October, the recognition code on 28 October, and the sexual harassment duty's confused dating on 21 and 25 October [8] [9] [10]. All three centred on measures that did commence on 30 October 2026, the date fixed for most of the Act's trade union and harassment package [5]. The written-statement duty is different: it is not in that commencement order at all, and by the government's own account was never meant to be. The problem is that one of its own live documents still says otherwise.
What the government itself has said, in order
New section 136A, inserted into the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 by section 58 of the 2025 Act, is short and direct: "A worker's employer must give the worker a written statement that the worker has the right to join a trade union" [1]. Section 58 itself was not in force at Royal Assent; three of its subsections took effect on 6 January 2026, but only "for specified purposes", the standard drafting that lets a minister prepare regulations in advance without switching the duty itself on [1]. The duty workers actually feel, the statement landing in their hands, needs a separate commencement decision.
The government's own paper trail on when that decision would take effect runs in a straight line until October 2026. The consultation it opened on 23 October 2025, seeking views on the statement's form, content and delivery, said in its ministerial foreword: "Our intention is for this duty on employers to start by October 2026 so that businesses have enough time to prepare properly" [2] (p.2). That consultation closed on 18 December 2025. The government's response to it, published 25 September 2026, nine months later and five weeks before the October date it had set, changed the plan without saying so: "Through the Act, the government is introducing a new duty on employers to provide workers with a written statement informing them of their right to join a trade union. This duty is intended to come into force in January 2027" [3] (p.4). Its conclusion repeats the new date and adds the detail for existing staff: "This duty is expected to come into force in January 2027. Employers will be required to issue the statement to all new workers that join from the commencement of the duty and deliver it to all existing workers by 5 April 2027" [3] (p.25). Nowhere in the 27-page response does the document acknowledge that it has moved the date from the one its own consultation announced eleven months earlier; a reader who has not seen the 2025 paper would have no way to know the date had ever been anything else.
The document that did not catch up
The Department for Business and Trade publishes two live timetables for the whole Act on the same gov.uk collection page, and both carry the identical public update date: 22 October 2026 [4] [6]. The more detailed one, the "timeline update", gets it right. Under the heading "Measures that will take effect on 1 January 2027" it lists: "reduction of unfair dismissal qualifying period to 6 months, for dismissals from 1 January 2027, and uncapping compensatory awards", then "the duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union", then "strengthening tipping law" [6]. That matches the consultation response exactly.
The companion roadmap, the plainer-language version of the same timetable, does not. Under "Measures that will take effect in October 2026", its list of eleven items, covering fire and rehire, tipping law, trade union access and the harassment duties, includes this: "duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union" [4]. It is not a leftover from an old version left unedited since 2025; the page's own public-facing update date is 22 October 2026, the same day the timeline update was last changed to show the correct date [4] [6]. Whoever updated the roadmap that day touched other parts of the document without touching this one. As of today, 31 October 2026, the last day of the month the roadmap says this duty takes effect in, no commencement regulations exist bringing section 58 into force for employers generally, and none are due to until January [1] [3] (p.25).
What happens if an employer never tells anyone
The consultation response is clear that enforcement is not getting a new mechanism: "The government intends that the duty will operate within existing employment law enforcement frameworks, under the Employment Act 2002, rather than creating a new standalone regulatory regime" [3] (p.24). Section 38 of that Act, once amended to include the new duty, "applies to proceedings before an employment tribunal relating to a claim by a worker under any of the jurisdictions listed in Schedule 5"; where such a claim succeeds, the tribunal "must" add a minimum of two weeks' pay and "may" add up to four weeks' if it considers that just and equitable [7]. That uplift exists only inside a tribunal claim about something else. A worker whose employer never issues the statement, and who never separately brings a qualifying claim under one of the Schedule 5 jurisdictions, has no route to a remedy for the omission on its own. The duty is real, but its only teeth are borrowed from an unrelated dispute the worker would have to be having anyway.
The claims, tested
| What the government has said, in order | What its own live documents show today | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| October 2025 consultation foreword: "Our intention is for this duty on employers to start by October 2026" [2] (p.2) | The 25 September 2026 consultation response moves the date to January 2027 without acknowledging the change [3] (p.4) | A public commitment was quietly superseded, not corrected against |
| The timeline update, updated 22 October 2026: the duty takes effect "on 1 January 2027" [6] | The roadmap, updated the same day, lists the identical duty under "Measures that will take effect in October 2026" [4] | Two of the department's own documents, edited on the same day, disagree by over two months on when a duty affecting every employer in Great Britain takes effect |
Credit where due
Not every part of this consultation response ignored what respondents said. On whether employers would have to draft the statement's wording themselves, a point several respondents raised as an unnecessary burden, the government decided against it: "the government will provide a standardised statement for employers to issue, which employers may not amend except to add specific workplace information" [3] (p.4). It also kept flexible, indirect delivery methods open for existing staff rather than mandating a single direct channel, a concession to the same burden concerns [3] (p.25). That is a genuine contrast with this site's findings on the Act's access and recognition consultations, where majorities of 90 percent or more were recorded as opposed and the final text changed nothing [8] [9]. Here, the practical detail did move. It is the date, not the substance, that the department's own paperwork has failed to carry through consistently.
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. The duty itself is a modest, clearly drafted addition to employment law, and the government engaged seriously with how to make it workable. But its own account of when that duty starts has not been the same thing twice: a firm October 2026 commitment in 2025, quietly moved to January 2027 in September 2026, and still showing as October 2026 on the department's own live roadmap five weeks after that move and on the same day its companion document was corrected.
The star score counts two documented mistakes. First, the Department for Business and Trade's implementation roadmap, with a public update date of 22 October 2026, lists "duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union" under "Measures that will take effect in October 2026", directly contradicting the department's own "timeline update" document, updated the same day, which correctly places the same duty on 1 January 2027, and contradicting the government's own formal consultation response of 25 September 2026. Second, the duty's enforcement mechanism is not a standalone right of action: a worker can only obtain the two-to-four weeks' pay uplift for a missing statement as an addition to a successful or unsuccessful claim they are separately bringing under one of the jurisdictions listed in Schedule 5 to the Employment Act 2002, so an employer who never issues the statement faces no consequence unless the affected worker happens to be pursuing an unrelated tribunal claim too. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding about the content of the statement itself, which the consultation response sets out in detail, or about the substance of the other Employment Rights Act 2025 measures that did commence on 30 October 2026, which this site has covered separately. The finding is narrower: that the department's own live roadmap has not been corrected to match the date its own consultation response and its own companion timetable both give. Checked directly against the Act, both consultation documents and both live departmental timetables, all fetched and read in full 31 October 2026.
Sources
- Employment Rights Act 2025, section 58, legislation.gov.uk
- Make Work Pay: Duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union (consultation), Department for Business and Trade, 23 October 2025
- Government response: duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union, Department for Business and Trade, 25 September 2026
- Implementing the Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: roadmap, Department for Business and Trade, published 14 October 2026, updated 22 October 2026
- The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 6 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026, legislation.gov.uk, made 1 October 2026, in force 30 October 2026
- Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: timeline update, Department for Business and Trade, updated 22 October 2026
- Employment Act 2002, section 38, legislation.gov.uk
- Trade union access rights: consultation ignored, Tracked Changes, 20 October 2026
- Trade union recognition code: consultation overruled, Tracked Changes, 28 October 2026
- Sexual harassment duty: reasonable steps regs delayed 2027, Tracked Changes, 21 October 2026