Scaffolding employers face tighter harassment duties and new trade-union access rules from Friday 30 October, including responsibilities for staff working on client-controlled sites.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 changes cover England, Wales and Scotland, not Northern Ireland, under commencement regulations made on 1 October.
The measures affect how contractors prevent harassment by clients and other trades, handle complaints and respond to union requests.
Stronger harassment duties
From 30 October, employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, strengthening the existing reasonable-steps duty.
They can also be liable for harassment of employees by third parties in the course of employment if they failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. That separate provision is not limited to sexual harassment.
Acas guidance lists clients, customers, self-employed contractors and tradespeople among the third parties to consider. Liability is not automatic simply because someone from another business behaves badly.
Acas advises employers to assess risks, review policies and relevant contract terms, train staff and provide clear reporting routes.
What is reasonable depends on factors including the organisation’s size, sector and the work involved.
For scaffolding firms, that includes arrangements for employees on client-controlled sites as well as conduct in the yard or office.
Union access is not unrestricted site entry
Trade unions will have a route to seek physical or digital workplace access through agreements or Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) decisions.
The framework does not give unions unrestricted entry to construction sites.
Under the access regulations, the employer’s response period ends on the 15th working day after receiving a request.
The negotiation period then ends on the 25th working day after the response notice.
The CAC must consider workplace safety and steps taken to secure necessary third-party co-operation, relevant where the scaffolding employer does not control the site.
The CAC must refuse access where the employer and associated employers together have fewer than 21 workers both when the request arrives and on average over the preceding 13 weeks.
The threshold applies across those employers, not to the headcount on an individual site.
The harassment duties and union-access process are separate. Employers should check the detailed guidance against their working arrangements.
