The Employment Rights Bill is set to introduce new rights for trade unions to access workplaces for the purposes of organising, recruiting and representing workers.

For unions organising outsourced workers, these rights could create significant new opportunities. But access rights are only valuable if they help organisers reach workers, build relationships and develop sustainable workplace organisation.

Outsourced workplaces present some distinct organising challenges. Workers are often employed by one organisation while working on another organisation's premises, workforces can be fragmented across multiple sites and contractors, and several employers may operate within the same workplace.

Organisers will also need to think about how to turn physical access into lasting workplace organisation, and how to build union strength that can survive contract re-tendering and TUPE transfers. Questions also arise about the role of digital access and communication in sectors where many workers may not routinely use workplace email systems, may have limited digital confidence, literacy barriers, or speak English as an additional language.

This interactive online workshop will explore how unions can use the new access rights to meet these challenges, recruit and organise outsourced workers, and support campaigns for insourcing.

We'll begin with a short presentation on the new rights and what they could mean in practice. The majority of the session will then be dedicated to workshop discussion, giving organisers the opportunity to share experiences, identify opportunities and develop practical organising strategies for using the new rights in outsourced workplaces

This online workshop is for full time officers and activists from TUC affiliated trade unions

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