Eight weeks from now a new duty arrives that costs nothing, takes five minutes to set up, and will be checked long after everyone has forgotten it. From 1 January 2027 every employer in Great Britain must give each new worker a written statement of the right to join a trade union. The government writes the words. You hand them over. The only thing that is yours is the record that you did.
For a recruitment agency the duty lands on the temp desk. The duty sits with the employer under the worker’s contract, so for a worker you engage on your own contract for services, that is you. The statement goes to each new worker at the same time as the written statement of particulars, which for most temp desks means the registration pack, beside the Key Information Document. Everyone already registered with you on 1 January must have it by 5 April 2027, and after that every year by 5 April if you give it directly, or a yearly reminder of where it lives if you keep it somewhere every worker can reach, a handbook or a portal.
What the statement says
You do not draft it. The government’s response of 25 September settled the content. A short account of what a trade union does. The unions you recognise, if any, with their contact details and the workers and sites the recognition covers. Any union with a statutory access agreement, which is new since 30 October. The Certification Officer’s list of trade unions, linked or attached. A summary of a worker’s statutory rights around membership. The text may only be changed where the regulations allow, which means adding your own workplace details and nothing else.
The regulations that fix the words and the method are expected to be laid before Parliament this month, with guidance shortly after. Until they are published there is nothing to copy, and anything you write yourself now will be replaced.
What to do this month, before the words arrive
Decide the route. Direct is simplest for a temp desk, because every worker already receives a registration pack and the statement becomes one more page in it, dated. Indirect works for a large bank of workers who use a portal, but it carries the yearly reminder and the test that the statement stays “continuously available and reasonably accessible”, which is harder to evidence than an email with a date on it.
Find your list. The duty for existing workers reaches everyone employed when it starts who is still employed on 5 April 2027. For a temp desk the question is which registered workers count, and the honest answer is to treat every worker with a live contract for services as in scope and give them the statement with the first assignment confirmation of the year.
Gather the facts the statement must carry. Whether you recognise a union, and for which workers. Whether any union now holds an access agreement with you under the regulations in force since 30 October. If both answers are no, the statement is the government’s text and the Certification Officer’s link, and the job is done.
Write the record now. A column in the registration log, “union statement given, date, how”. The six-month claim window since 1 October means the record has to outlive the assignment, and the one question anyone will ask in 2027 is not what the statement said but whether this worker received it.
Settle the umbrella question in your terms. Where an umbrella company employs the worker, the umbrella is the employer for this duty, and your terms with it should say it will give the statement and show you the record on request. The Key Information Document already tells the worker who employs them. The statement follows the same answer.
Where this sits
The statement is one of the January changes, alongside unfair dismissal protection after six months and the removal of the compensatory cap, and it belongs in the same January review of the registration pack. The timeline guide on our Employment Rights Hub carries every date with its source and will carry the government’s wording the week it is published. https://ior.org/employment-rights-act-timeline
The temp desk’s guide, updated today, has the rule that arrived on 30 October alongside this one, that your temps count towards your own headcount for a union access request. https://ior.org/agency-workers-and-temp-desks
Agency Members will find the registration pack line and the record column in the library’s templates when the words are published. Check any recruiter at ior.org/certified.
Sources. Trade union reform, business.gov.uk, Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. Government response to the consultation on the duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union, gov.uk, 25 September 2026. The Trade Unions (Right to Access Workplaces) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/1101, legislation.gov.uk. Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act, timeline update, gov.uk, 22 October 2026.
This post is general information written from government sources as at 4 November 2026. It is not legal advice.