Prospect has reached an agreement to hold sessions at Google sites, The Guardian reported, as new rules give qualifying unions a formal route to contact workers in Britain.
The Guardian said the arrangement reaches roughly 7,000 workers in Google’s UK business. YouTube employees are included, while DeepMind staff fall outside the reported coverage. The union can hold sessions at company locations, including Google’s King’s Cross headquarters in London.
Google told the newspaper it signed the arrangement to comply with the new legislation and pointed to existing employee representative groups. Prospect General Secretary Mike Clancy said tech workers “deserve a stronger voice at work.”
The Employment Rights Act 2025’s union-access provisions took effect Oct. 30. Under Section 59, qualifying independent unions may seek in-person visits, digital communication or both to contact workers for membership, representation or collective-bargaining purposes. The rules exclude organizing industrial action and apply in England, Scotland and Wales.
That access route does not itself give a union recognition for collective bargaining, which the act addresses separately. The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) says an employer has 15 working days to respond to a request; if talks break down, either side may ask the Central Arbitration Committee to determine terms. EconoTimes previously explained the union-access rules that began Oct. 30.
The Guardian’s reported coverage figure differs in scope from an earlier estimate by Reuters. Reuters reported May 20, 2026, that Google had about 7,000 UK employees, including DeepMind, so the reports’ figures are difficult to reconcile.
Prospect announced Sept. 21 that a separate deal with Meta covered 5,000 UK staff and could be used to discuss membership and recruit. The government says employers must begin giving new workers a written statement about their right to join a union on Jan. 1, 2027; existing staff are due to receive one by April 5, 2027.
