CBI responds to government response to trade union right of access

Matthew Percival, CBI Future of Work and Skills Director, said: 

"Granting every union a right to access every workplace on a weekly basis risks adding disruption and distracting employers from their core focus of creating jobs and delivering economic growth, with little benefit for workers.

“Bringing employers and unions together to agree how these rules should work is the only way to ensure a constructive and long-lasting outcome. If this were to have happened, businesses may have been willing to accept more targeted access rights, underpinned by clear safeguards to ensure powers were used responsibly.

“This will be especially difficult to understand for businesses whose workforce is already represented by a union yet would still be required to grant access to other unions.

“It is welcome that the government has acknowledged that businesses need adequate time to consider and respond to access requests. But a truly balanced approach would ensure each party has a requirement to act reasonably, not place strict expectations on employers while trusting that unions will be reasonable.”