An employment expert at Knights has stressed that businesses will now need to be taking additional care when handing disciplinary action to an employee who has been involved in industrial action – even if the two are not linked.
It’s as changes related to strike action and the relationships businesses have with Trade Unions come in this week as part of the Employment Rights Act 2025.
Partner, John Wood, said these changes are a rollback of changes previously implemented when the Conservative government were in power:
“I think that the most significant changes coming in this month can probably be separated into two categories.
“Firstly, there are greater protections which are being introduced in relation to the dismissal of employees who have been involved in industrial action. Previously, if an individual is dismissed from their post within a 12-week period of being involved in a strike or similar then it was automatically held to be unfair. The change, coming in from February 18th 2026, is to remove that limit which will extend protection quite significantly.
“The other aspect focuses on changes around the notice organisations need to give ahead of strike action – reducing from 14 to 10 days. This will allow trade unions to act more quickly but will also mean sustained action will be more likely with the industrial action mandate being extended from six to 12 months. The simplification of ballots will also make it much simpler for Trade Unions to ballot its members.”
John adds that this will be just the start of changes introduced by the Employment Rights Act:
“These are the first in quite a significant tranche of changes to trade union laws and rules, and ones that are certainly weighted in favour of trade unions and intended to make life easier for them - providing for greater protections for trade union members as well.
“I think, in terms of the here and now, the changes around dismissal for taking part in industrial action will give much greater scope for employers to be challenged, and over a longer period as well.
“Employers will need to be much more careful in how they go about disciplinaries and dismissing employees who've been involved in strike action. It will be important for them to make sure they've got a very clear evidence base for any dismissal and really, they want to do everything they can to be able to demonstrate to a tribunal that the action they're taking isn't linked to the employee having been involved in industrial action, but is for something completely separate.
“The key point for employers will be to look at engaging with recognised trade unions at an early stage to try and stave off industrial action. This is perhaps no different to what we’re used to but with these changes, if you get a stalemate, the timings can change more quickly.
“As I’ve highlighted, these changes will make things easier for trade unions and will give them greater access to employees to essentially try and expand their membership, so businesses need to be careful.”