COMMENT: Gary Smith, GMB
9 March 2026
Add your name: https://labourunions.org.uk/access/
I’m Gary Smith, and I’m proud to be General Secretary of GMB.
Trade unions make work better. But too often we are locked out of workplaces, with workers denied the strength, protection and support a union brings.
This is why the Trade Union Right of Access within the Employment Rights Act could be a gamechanger. But, this is not guaranteed. If the rules are weak, bad bosses will drive a coach and horses through them.
Good employers know the benefits of a union in the workplace – but anti-union businesses with deep pockets will push back hard against union access.
Take Amazon. Our members in Coventry and beyond have been fighting for years. And what have they faced? Union-busting at its worst. In the United States alone, Amazon spent $14.2 million on anti-union consultants in a single year. That tells you everything you need to know.
Now the Government is proposing fines capped at £75,000 for employers who block unions from meeting workers. £75,000. For global giants like Amazon, that’s loose change. That’s not a deterrent, just a minor inconvenience. And if bad employers can price in the penalty for bad behaviour, they’ll keep breaking the rules.
If this new right of access for unions is going to mean anything, we need:
• Real fines: the kind that make bad bosses sit up. Like 10% of global turnover.
• Real protections: so workers can meet their union without intimidation or surveillance.
• No loopholes: every worker, every workplace. No carve-outs.
This is about our movement getting serious about rebalancing power back to working class people again.
Our members in Amazon are working flat out. Pennies above minimum wage. Constant surveillance. Brutal conditions in distribution centres. They deserve a union at their backs. And we will not stop until they get it.
But the law has to be strong enough to stop bad bosses blocking us at the gate.
So, I’m asking you to stand with us.
Send a message to Ministers: make this new trade union right of access real.
Add your name today: https://labourunions.org.uk/access/