Advocating for Palestine

UTAW is committed to supporting the BDS movement in its campaign to end the Israeli apartheid regime and its occupation of Palestine. You can read the call for BDS from Palestinian civil society at the BDS Movement website.

1.0 Introduction

Palestinian trade unions have called on workers around the world to act in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

As a union of tech workers, UTAW-CWU understands that many of our members and colleagues wish to cease work or avoid starting work on weapons and military technology, including software and cloud services, that are destined for use by Israel against Palestinians.

We are calling on tech companies to end any contracts with the state of Israel and companies complicit in its regime of apartheid and occupation. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has outlined strategic targets, listed on the BDS movement website.

Disclaimer: none of this document constitutes legal advice. Union members may seek legal advice by contacting their union.

2.0 Risks of Inaction

Israel relies on international supply chains to enable it to commit war crimes with impunity. If our work contributes to this, Israel can continue to murder Palestinians at a terrifying rate, and we become complicit. Any risks of action should be weighed with the urgent plight of all those who suffer thanks to the ongoing genocide and apartheid regime.

Generally speaking, being disorganised at work threatens our future livelihoods. Without organisation, we are vulnerable. If we fail to stand against the current atrocities, we will be unprepared to fight future ones that are made likely by inherent crises of capitalism - including economic crises and climate breakdown.

3.0 Risks of Action

Taking action always involves some risk. Understanding the risks helps us mitigate them.

3.1 Disciplinary Action

Disciplinary action can be taken against us for misconduct.

The consequences of this can range from an informal warning to dismissal. If the misconduct is serious enough that it is deemed “gross misconduct” we can be dismissed without notice.

Behaviour is misconduct if it breaches the law, contract, or company policy. Work contracts have an implied term requiring us to obey any reasonable and lawful instruction. Refusing to follow a lawful and reasonable order is serious insubordination which usually qualifies as gross misconduct.

3.2 Legal Action for Breach of Contract

If we breach our contract (for example, by resigning on the spot without working our notice period), and this causes a cost to the employer, they can technically sue us for the resulting damages. It is, however, rare for employers to take such action.

4.0 Protection for action

4.1 Safety in numbers

This is the most important and powerful protection we have.

Before there were any legal protections for trade unions, workers’ movements relied on mass action. The more people who act together, the harder it is to be victimised.

Before taking an action, consider if you can get more people involved, and how many participants are needed to provide a reasonable degree of safety.

4.2 Employers need our kabour

Employers can’t function properly without the work we do. Companies make no profits without workers.

This is the fundamental building block of our power. This power is strongest when applied collectively - such as via strike action where workers withdraw their labour together.

Even as an individual, we have some protection due to the employer’s need for our labour and the difficulty and cost of replacing us. This is more of a protection if you do “skilled” rather than “unskilled” labour. This distinction isn’t a judgement on the individual - labour is considered more “skilled” the more it costs in time and money to train someone to become capable at performing the work at an average degree of competency. If you do “skilled labour” the employer may be reluctant to terminate your contract.

Employers try to diminish this power by creating a reserve army of labour (for example, by making redundancies) or reorganising the work so it becomes “deskilled”.

4.4 Legal protection from unfiar dismissal

If your contract is terminated unfairly, you can make a claim to tribunal for unfair dismissal. This right only applies when employed for at least two years, or if the dismissal is for an “automatically unfair” reason. A tribunal can award compensation or reinstatement if an unfair dismissal claim is upheld.

For a dismissal to be fair, the employer’s procedures (and as a minimum standard, the ACAS code of practice) should be followed and there should be a proper investigation with a reasonable conclusion made on “balance of probabilities” (this is a weaker standard than the “beyond reasonable doubt” required for criminal convictions).

4.5 Local protection from wrongful dismissal

Wrongful dismissal is a breach of contract to do with the way a contract is termed.

When dismissed, we have to be paid for accrued holidays and our notice period has to be served (unless it is gross misconduct) by working the notice, or, if allowed by the contract, payment in lieu of notice or gardening leave. Claims for wrongful dismissal or breach of contract can be made to a tribunal regardless of duration of employment. The most likely reason we would make such a claim is to challenge a “gross misconduct” outcome. A tribunal may award the outstanding notice pay and accrued leave to be paid to us.

Legal Protection from detriment for trade union activities

Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act section 146 protects us from detriment for taking part in trade union activities.)

In order to qualify for this protection these activities must take place outside of working hours, for example during a lunch break.

We should still be protected even if these activities take place on work premises or via work communication systems, but we should be aware that we are likely under surveillance in these circumstances.

Recruitment is a protected trade union activity. There is a very strong argument that any organising or discussion of Palestine solidarity by UTAW-CWU members is a trade union activity, given this is a policy of our union. Direct action, such as refusal to handle military technology for Israel, would not be protected by this law.

This protection applies from day one of work, and a claim to the tribunal can be made for any detriment (e.g. disciplinary action). It may be hard to prove, especially if dismissed after less than 2 years of employment, that this legislation is relevant.

4.6 Defence Based in the Link to War Crimes

It is misconduct to refuse to comply with a reasonable and lawful instruction at work.

We could argue that, if the instruction will aid Israel’s war crimes, it is an unreasonable and unlawful instruction, because it abets war crimes. It is unclear how a tribunal would react to such argumentation.

4.7 Equality Act protection from discrimination on grounds of religious or philosophical belief

The Equality Act lists religion or belief as a protected characteristic. It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against us for a religious or philosophical belief.

Genocide is against most religious teachings and non-religious belief systems.

The EHRC gives the example:

“An employee believes strongly in man-made climate change and feels that they have a duty to live their life in a way which limits their impact on the earth to help save it for future generations: this would be classed as a belief and protected under the Equality Act.”

Similarly, we could argue:

“An employee believes strongly that the ongoing indiscriminate murder of civilians by Israel is an evil that all people have an ethical duty to avoid aiding” should be protected under the Equality Act.”

It is not clear what decisions a tribunal would make in response to such arguments.

Claims can always be made under the Equality Act in relation to employment - there is no qualifying period. It may be hard to prove, especially if dismissed after less than 2 years of employment, that this legislation is relevant.

4.8 Update: recent caselaw

Recent caselaw (David Miller vs Bristol University) has affirmed anti-Zionism as a protected belief under the Equality Act. This adds strength to the argument that it is unlawful to discriminate against us for advocating for Palestine, whether rooted in anti-Zionism or other philosophies.

This is a limited tool to protect us. In order for there to be a strong case of discrimination, we would need to show we were subjected to either:

1. unfavourable / detrimental treatment specifically because of those beliefs
2. less favourable treatment than some other person/people, who have different beliefs, in similar circumstances

For example, disciplinary action against you for posting in a Slack channel about Palestine could be discrimination if other topics (e.g. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) have been discussed. However, if there is a blanket policy to not discuss political issues or current affairs and it is consistently applied then a discrimination claim is likely to fail. Several cases have demonstrated that a wide range of beliefs are protected. Protection of beliefs does not protect all manifestations of those beliefs. Holding a belief won’t usually be a defence for misconduct and protections from discrimination for a belief do not extend to actions that themselves amount to discrimination. While advocating for Palestine, we must ensure we do not discriminate against others. From the recent cases we should assume that, as anti-Zionist beliefs are protected, Zionist beliefs (a complex religious and political topic, but assume this means any pro-Israel views) are too. Therefore, if you come across a coworker who expresses pro-Israel beliefs while campaigning, it is best to just note their opinion rather than getting into an argument. Focus on mobilising those who are pro-Palestine and winning over those who don’t yet have strong opinions.

5.0 Actions at any employer

5.1 Discussing your union’s Palestine Solidarity Policy

Discussing the policy with colleagues is a simple way to raise understanding about both the Palestinian cause and the existence and activity of the union.

As long as any discussions are done outside of working hours (i.e., on breaks), we would have a strong defence against disciplinary action for such discussions. If similar discussions have been allowed in the past (e.g., discussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) then there is a good argument that, from practice, such political discussion should be allowed.

5.2 Discussing BDS

We can discuss Boycott. Divestment and Sanctions with colleagues. It can be particularly useful to explain the purpose of BDS and the limited nature of the boycott, focusing on just a few key companies.

Unless there is a general ban on discussing non-work topics, disciplinary action for such conversations will be hard for an employer to justify. As long as any discussions are done outside of working hours, we would have a strong defence against disciplinary action on the basis that BDS is our union’s policy and therefore a trade union activity.

5.3 Campaign fpr the company to comply with BDS

We can campaign for our employers to adopt a BDS policy, audit procurement and cease any contracts with companies on the BDS list. This could include:

Not buying equipment or services from HP or Siemens Not using AXA for any insurance or employee benefits Avoiding Israeli fruit and veg in office canteens Tactics could include an open letter, released only if a threshold of signatories is met, to ask for the policy to be introduced. There is no hard power we can use to force the implementation of a policy, but an employer may decide, if there is a demonstration of strong employee feeling, that it is worth agreeing to maintain goodwill. A prolonged campaign may help build union membership, which employers will want to avoid. Implementing a BDS policy is fairly easy as boycott targets have readily available alternatives.

As long as any campaign activities are done outside of working hours, we would have a strong defence against disciplinary action for such activities as they are trade union activities.

In addition, asking an employer to adopt a policy is not misconduct.

6.0 Actions at companies with Israeli state or military contracts

6.1 Refusal to handle or work on military tech

If you discover you are working on technology destined for the Israeli military, or are instructed to start such work, you could refuse. This has a high risk of dismissal, and possibly summary dismissal without notice, for insubordination. If you can get as many colleagues as possible to similarly refuse, it will be harder for the employer to take disciplinary action.

As a mitigation, you could suggest that you be redeployed elsewhere within the company, and cite your religious or philosophical belief as a reason for your inability to do such work, see section 4.6 above.

6.2 Resignation

Instead of simply refusing to do the work, you could tender your resignation, and explain in your resignation letter why you feel you can’t continue working. Resignation is a lawful form of withdrawing our labour that is always available to us. Resigning along with as many colleagues as possible could make the company reconsider the particular work being done.

You could ask for payment in lieu of notice or gardening leave, citing your religious / philosophical belief as an argument for why you cannot work your notice. Your employer may or may not agree. You could also use annual leave if available or sick leave (if relevant) to avoid working during your notice period.

6.3 Sick Leave

The prospect or reality of doing work that enables war crimes may cause psychological injury or stress.

This may be to a level where you are unable to work and need to take sick leave. This could lead to a long-term period of illness. You can self-certify for up to seven days, after which you need to obtain fit notes.

Depending on the company’s sick pay policy, taking time off sick may lead to a loss of income. You may be dismissed on grounds of capability for taking too much sick leave. This is particularly a risk in the first two years of employment. After two years of employment, the employer must follow a proper process in line with their policies before dismissing for sickness absence. If the illness is made worse or is made worse by a disability, there may be a case for disability discrimination.

Long-term sickness, or short-term sickness when you have had several instances of sick leave in the past, may trigger an absence management policy. You are likely to be invited to an absence review meeting, in which case you could explain that enabling war crimes causes you stress and suggest being assigned alternative work.

6.4 Poor performance and go-slow

You could work slower or make more “mistakes” than usual, to slow down the completion of projects.

This would put you at risk of performance or capability processes that can lead to your dismissal. If the employer suspects deliberately poor performance, they could follow misconduct processes.

6.5 Raising a grievance

You could raise a grievance about being asked to do work that aids war crimes.

A grievance is a formal process that causes extra work for the employer and makes your objections clear.

It would be good to mention religious / philosophical belief as this hints at a risk for the employer and there is a potential legal claim on these grounds. Making it a collective grievance, with as many complainants as possible, adds to the strength of the action.

6.6 Open letter

You could write an open letter or petition with as many colleagues signing as possible.

The letter could have a threshold of a number of signatories before being made public to help provide strength in numbers.

It would act as a show of the strength of feeling and a proof that you can coordinate on at least a simple action, which may scare the employer into conceding or making compromises. Those not directly involved in the work that provides military technology can also be involved in this. By showing names, an open letter has a small amount of risk for the participants, and as such can act as a test of people’s commitment before actions with greater risk.

7.0 Steps for organising a campaign with colleagues

To build safety in numbers and a powerful mass campaign - whether it’s calling for a change in policy or building up to a risky refusal of work - you need to get together with coworkers. You will know your own workplace best and should use your best judgement as to what will work.

The following general steps are a rough outline of how we build a campaign.

7.1 Move away from work communications

Wherever possible, avoid using work communication systems to build the campaign. Using work communication systems for union campaigns should be protected (as long as it’s outside of your working hours) but the assumption should be that anything you say is monitored by your employer.

Regardless of the law, employers do apply pressure to discourage reaching out to colleagues via work comms and may introduce restrictive policies for Slack, Teams, and other platforms.

If you can get people to use your union’s comms system or private Signal or WhatsApp groups, then this allows much freer conversation without surveillance. Where colleagues are UTAW-CWU members, an email could be sent out to invite them to specific communication channels, or you could do phone-banking of fellow members to gauge interest and encourage involvement.

For non-members you could send a simple message like “Hi. My trade union, UTAW, is running a campaign for company to cease contracts with Israel / adopt BDS / etc. If you’re interested in getting involved, please email address with a phone number to be added to the Signal group.” - adapt as needed.

7.2 Gauge interest among friends and truested colleagues

Talk about the issue with friends and colleagues you trust. You likely already have an idea of the views of these people and so can contact those who you think will be interested.

This is best done in person or over the phone, using non-work contact details you already have, or on calls where you’re unlikely to be monitored.

With friends and fellow union members, you can form a committee of those who want to be actively involved with running the campaign (and not just passive supporters).

7.3 Plan outreach with the initial campaign group

The next step is to decide as a committee how to reach out to get more people involved and find out who supports the campaign.

This will involve a bit of admin and probably a spreadsheet. Map out your team / department / officer / company and divide coworkers who are not yet involved between you for one-to-one conversations.

If a committee member already has the personal contact details of a worker, that’s a good reason for that person to be assigned to them. Likewise, if they work alongside them on a regular basis there has likely already been some trust built.

Ensure the whole committee understands that any employer-monitorable discussion should be limited to outside working hours. Also, be prepared for possible backlash, intimidation, or discussion about the activity with managers / HR.

If HR or management do approach any committee members, it is best to push back on any offer to have a one-to-one meeting (you will have to attend if directly ordered but otherwise avoid it) and try to assert that any communications should be in writing, so a paper trail can be built.

When reaching out to fellow workers, the aim will be to have them commit to an initial action on the basis of their support for this cause (e.g., joining the Whatsapp group, or signing an open letter). Another important outcome of this conversation is to get a personal email or phone number and permission to contact them further. Add this, and any commitments they made, to your map.

7.4 Escalate action

Once there are enough people (to your best judgement as a committee) signed up to the campaign, it’s time for action.

Start with a simple, low effort, low risk action, such as an open letter. Decide on the details of the action as a group (e.g., the wording of an open letter, who it will be sent to, and the target number of signatories) then start mobilising those signed up to the campaign to take the action. This will involve using multiple methods of communication, as well as leaning on personal relationships.

Acting together will aim to have some effect, while also acting as a test of the strength of your organisation as a campaign group.

If you can’t mobilise enough people for the action, that indicates you haven’t built a strong enough organisation and may need to go back to outreach and one-to-one conversations.

If you are successful, your employer may react to the action and agree to your demands, but more likely they will ignore you or try to retaliate. In this case, you will need to reconvene as a committee/campaign group and decide on your next action, which should be a step up in terms of impact and risk.

At this stage, everyone on the committee should be a union member and everyone who signed up for the campaign should be encouraged to join.

This gives you all greater protection and can be leveraged for collective negotiation to win your campaign’s demands.

8.0 Conclusion

The entire history of trade unionism shows us that the path to justice is through solidarity and that this requires collective action and strategic thinking.

Workers and union members must navigate the risks and protections outlined in this guide with careful consideration. The struggle to end complicity with oppressive regimes is not without challenges, but safety lies in numbers and unity.

As we advocate for ethical practices within our workplaces, we also acknowledge the broader context of global struggles for justice. Whether through discussions, campaigns, or more decisive actions, unions must stand firm in our commitment to justice, equality, and the protection of human rights.

Remember, each step taken in solidarity contributes to a collective voice that echoes beyond our individual workplaces.

The journey may be challenging, but it is a necessary one to ensure a future where the principles of justice and humanity prevail.

Boycott Israel at Work

As a settler-colonial State, Israel uses the business of tech to support and profit off its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. It continues its genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced displacements and collective punishment of Palestinians by indiscriminately bombing civilians in Gaza, including hospitals, schools, universities, blood banks, ambulances, UN shelters and refugee camps, and targeting journalists.

As tech workers, we have a responsibility to ensure that our labour does not enable genocide and apartheid. This guide offers suggestions about some concrete actions you can take as a tech worker in the UK.

We also recommend this guide on UK employment law as it relates to advocacy for Palestinian rights.

What’s the situation

Israel is using an array of sophisticated tech, like automated drone systems, facial recognition surveillance, cloud services and other military or surveillance tools to support a brutal apartheid regime, cause long-term environmental damage, and commit war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. None of these Israeli actions amount to a State’s right to self-defence. Instead, they have been recognised as clear violations of international law by the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, WHO, UNICEF, OCHA, at least 36 UN Special Rapporteurs, UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Situation in Palestine, hundreds of well-respected legal scholars and experts, and human rights organisations.

The Israeli military-tech-industrial complex has been integral to maintaining this state of affairs for decades before the current war on Gaza. Israel’s military and surveillance sector is deeply tied up with the global tech industry, and the weapons and tools of oppression produced by Israel are ‘field-tested’ on Palestinians and exported to authoritarian and colonial regimes worldwide.

Tech workers rising

Heeding the urgent calls by Palestinian trade unions for international solidarity and Israeli disarmament, the United Tech and Allied Workers branch of the CWU has been calling on their members to cease work or avoid starting work on any weapons or other military technology, including software and cloud services, that are destined for use by Israel. Globally, tech workers are demanding that their employers review and rescind their contracts with the State of Israel as well as private firms complicit in occupation and apartheid.

The worker-led movement #NoTechForApartheid has raised alarm over Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. This technology surveils Palestinians and facilitates the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land. It is clear to us that we must disarm this regime, and it is morally reprehensible to accept the operation of ‘business as usual’ with any power that enables apartheid and genocide.

Boycott and divestment as effective strategies

Boycotting and divesting from Israel’s technological apparatus is an effective and peaceful strategy we can pursue as tech workers. This strategy is also part of a long-running global movement of Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) led by Palestinians, which targets economic infrastructures that enable apartheid in Palestine.

BDS strategies have a track record of creating meaningful change. Historically, global efforts to target the economic infrastructures of apartheid have been successful—for instance, the international solidarity movement which eventually led to the dismantling of South African apartheid in 1993.

As tech workers, we are part of an influential industry and are particularly well-positioned to use boycott and divestment tactics to pressure local, regional, and national bodies and governments to create sanctions against recalcitrant regimes like Israel’s.

What can you do?

Step 1: Connect

Check if your organisation already has tech workers organising against apartheid.

You can look for colleagues who have posted in your organisation’s communication channels or post your own message of solidarity with Palestine and note who responds. Below is one example:

Hi all, Just wanted to highlight the National March for Palestine on Saturday and encourage anyone who can to attend. It’s easy to feel helpless when atrocities have the implicit support of our own government, but the reality is we all have more power now than we did when we all showed solidarity with Ukraine after the Russian invasion. Everybody on the streets calling for a ceasefire and a just peace will count in the mind of those with the power to put an end to the 75 year cycle of violence in Palestine and Israel. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza - where half the population are children - is only getting worse, and the massacre must stop to save the lives of tens of thousands more Palestinians.

Once you’ve identified some sympathetic individuals, reach out for a phone call or in-person conversation and ask if they’d like to work together with you to persuade your company to divest. If they agree, ask them if they know any other colleagues who would be interested in this, and if they would be willing to ask them to join you. Once you have 5-10 interested people, have a meeting to plan the next step: research.

Step 2: Investigate

Investigate your organisation’s existing contracts for complicity

AVENUE A: Check your company’s contracts and investments

Check if you have contracts with the Israeli government or military, or with a company currently on the boycott list maintained by the BDS Movement.

Use your company website and annual reports to find existing or new contracts that may be complicit. You can also follow the industry news to keep up with contracts and projects. Make a list of contracts and relationships to investigate further. Use this handbook to help you with your corporate research. AVENUE B: Dig deeper on any suspicious contracts in your list

Do a background search on contracts with Israel or with the complicit companies listed on the BDS movement website. Use the resources below to look into the companies from your list. You can use the database created by Who Profits to cross check company names from your list. Who Profits is an independent research center dedicated to exposing the commercial involvement of Israeli and international corporations in the occupation and war crimes. If you don’t find information regarding the company you’re searching for, but want to get information, you can write to them at whoprofits@gmail.com. You can also explore the database of Israeli military and security exports- DIMSE. They have a detailed online corporate database where you can search the relevant company’s name. They also produce infographics and reports that cover a wide range of issues. AFSC Investigate provides information on companies that may be invested in state violence through companies involved in mass incarceration, immigrant detention and surveillance, military occupation, or the border industry. The aim is to help people align their investments with ethical values. You can search their database and also write to them using their contact page. You can also reach out to the Palestinian BDS National Committee for information.

AVENUE C: Check with your company

If you found a contract you suspect might be complicit but could not find any information from the above sources, you could consider asking someone in your company about it. Obviously this is a potentially risky move, so carefully consider the risk and only proceed if you feel comfortable doing so. Take a look at this guide to UK employment law and advocating for Palestinian rights to help you decide.

Step 3: Organise

Turning your findings into a campaign

Now that you’ve identified contracts with companies that are a legitimate target for BDS, it’s time to take action. At this stage, it would also help to contact your trade union.

Remember, our aim is not to punish companies who have contracts with Israel but to pressure them to end such contracts. This is because the central objective is to end complicity with Israel’s apartheid and genocide through these contracts, and to ensure that companies do not profit off the oppression of Palestinian people. Ending these contracts ensures your labour is not directed towards maintaining this criminal structure. To this end, the initial goal will be to ask your employer to tell the complicit company that it must end its business relationships with Israel or your employer will terminate their contract.

Before you do that, it’s important to build support for this demand among your colleagues.If your trade union has a policy supporting BDS, they might be able to help you plan and execute such a campaign.

To build safety in numbers and a powerful campaign you need to get together with coworkers. You will know your own workplace best and should use your best judgment as to what will work.

The following general steps are a rough outline of how we build a campaign.

Move away from work communications

Wherever possible, avoid using work communication systems to build the campaign. Using work communication systems for union campaigns should be protected (as long as it’s outside of your working hours) but the assumption should be that anything you say is monitored by your employer.

Regardless of the law, employers do apply pressure to discourage reaching out to colleagues via work comms and may introduce restrictive policies for Slack, Teams, and other platforms.

If you can get people to use your union’s comms system or private Signal or WhatsApp groups, then this allows much freer conversation without surveillance. Where colleagues are union members, an email could be sent out to invite them to specific communication channels, or you could do phone-banking of fellow members to gauge interest and encourage involvement.

For non-members you could send a simple message like “Hi. My trade union is running a campaign for [company] to cease contracts with Israel / adopt BDS / etc. If you’re interested in getting involved, please email [address] with a phone number to be added to the Signal group.” - adapt as needed.

Gauge interest among friends and trusted colleagues

Talk about the issue with friends and colleagues you trust. You likely already have an idea of the views of these people and so can contact those who you think will be interested.

This is best done in person or over the phone, using non-work contact details you already have, or on one-to-one calls.

With friends and fellow union members, you can form a committee of those who want to be actively involved with running the campaign (and not just passive supporters).

Plan outreach with the initical campaign group

The next step is to decide as a committee how to reach out to get more people involved and find out who supports the campaign.

This will involve a bit of admin and probably a spreadsheet. Map out your team / department / officer / company and divide coworkers who are not yet involved between you for one-to-one conversations.

If a committee member already has the personal contact details of a worker, that’s a good reason for that person to be assigned to them. Likewise, if they work alongside them on a regular basis there has likely already been some trust built.

Ensure the whole committee understands that any employer-monitorable discussion should be limited to outside working hours. Also, be prepared for possible backlash, intimidation, or discussion about the activity with managers / HR.

If HR or management do approach you, it is best to push back on any offer to have a one-to-one meeting (you will have to attend if directly ordered but otherwise avoid it) and try to assert that any communications should be in writing, so a paper trail can be built. If an informal verbal conversation takes place, take some notes and email any salient points to the manager, e.g., “Thanks for the chat earlier, where you told me X, Y and Z.” This creates a paper trail which is then up to the manager to dispute, and which you can have as evidence if needed.

When reaching out to fellow workers, the aim will be to have them commit to an initial action on the basis of their support for this cause (e.g., joining the Whatsapp group, or signing an open letter). Another important outcome of this conversation is to get a personal email or phone number and permission to contact them further. Add this, and any commitments they made, to your map.

Escalate Action

Once there are enough people (to your best judgement as a committee) signed up to the campaign, it’s time for action.

Start with a simple, low effort, low risk action, such as an open letter. Decide on the details of the action as a group (e.g., the wording of an open letter, who it will be sent to, and the target number of signatories) then start mobilising those signed up to the campaign to take the action. This will involve using multiple methods of communication, as well as leaning on personal relationships.

Acting together will aim to have some effect, while also acting as a test of the strength of your organisation as a campaign group.

If you can’t mobilise enough people for the action, that indicates you haven’t built a strong enough organisation and may need to go back to outreach and one-to-one conversations.

If you are successful, your employer may react to the action and agree to your demands, but more likely they will ignore you or try to retaliate. In this case, you will need to reconvene as a committee/campaign group and decide on your next action, which should be a step up in terms of impact and risk.

At this stage, everyone on the committee should be a union member and everyone who signed up for the campaign should be encouraged to join.

This gives you all greater protection and can be leveraged for collective negotiation to win your campaign’s demands.

Know your rights

For general legal advice, check out the UTAW guide on advocating for Palestine at work.

Your union will be able to give advice on specific situations, we strongly suggest working through a union.

UTAW partnered with the Data Workers Inquiry to produce a report on the lived experiences of data workers, particularly content moderators and trust and safety workers at TikTok in London. It focuses on how big tech companies treat data workers, documenting the context of exploitation, the systematic outsourcing to business process outsourcing companies (BPOs), the replacement of human labor with inadequate automated systems, and the reduction of workforce numbers without accountability.

It aims to expose the hidden realities of data work. It also highlights the emotional and psychological toll of moderating harmful content. The core message is that while data workers play a crucial role in keeping online platforms safe, they are often exploited, underpaid and left without mental health support. Their labor remains largely invisible, despite its importance.

This issue is important because data workers are responsible for protecting millions of users from harmful online risks including abuse, violence, and suicide-related materials, to mention a few. Despite this, they face significant psychological risks that are often underestimated or ignored.

Read the report:

Listen on Buzzsprout

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

UTAW’s podcast, where Shireen, Eleaor & Edwin figure out what’s going on in tech, unions, politics and the internet.

In this Extraordinary General Episode, “The Committee” suffers it’s first resignation, the panel becomes an orifice of government, we organise the cabinet in to height order and present a special report from Union-Con.

Further Reading:

• One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up: A Memoir of Growing Up and Getting On Popbitch Newsletter
• Play Guess The Party
• Futurism: Meta Secretly Building a Photorealistic AI Clone of Mark Zuckerberg so No Employee Can Ever Escape His Watchful Eye
• Reuters: Meta employees launch protest against mouse-tracking tech at US offices
• CWU Conference 9-hour stream, day 1, day 2.

The Motion:

No motion this week :(

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

Workers are organising at Meta with the UK’s largest tech union, citing attacks on their employment rights, redundancies and shocking violations of privacy against both Meta employees and users of their platforms.

“News like the reductions in UK employee insurance coverage and training AI on coworkers’ private data in spite of their objections, have left us feeling disrespected and unheard.

As individuals, we have little power against a company that signalled its intention to care about us less and less. Together, we can advocate for what’s right for each other, our users, and the long-term success of our company.

If we can build Meta, we can build our union at Meta too. It’s time to do something.

Join us!”

– a UTAW rep at Meta

If you work at Meta and want to join your colleagues to fight back against these decisions being imposed on you, join your colleagues and become a UTAW member, the only union run by and for tech workers.

Read the original article at Novara Media.

Join us

A trade union is an organised group of workers who act together to improve their working conditions. Instead of each person negotiating alone — where the employer holds all the power — a union lets workers make collective demands with a unified voice. UK law gives this collective power a legal framework and protections: under Trade Union Law, workers have the legal right to organise, bargain together, and take action to back up their demands. You can join our union UTAW-CWU here.

Our Demands

Artificial intelligence holds immense power. As Google continues to push boundaries, we cannot allow that power to be used for harmful purposes such as military weapons, surveillance, or other unethical uses. Google’s technology must serve the greater good—advancing human rights, global security, and positive societal outcomes. By supporting this campaign, you are standing up for a future where tech companies, especially Google, operate in a way that prioritises ethical standards and respects fundamental human rights. We must ensure Google’s technologies are used for peace, safety, and equality, not for fueling conflict, oppression, or harm. Together, we can hold Google accountable to these principles, shaping the future of technology to protect rather than endanger humanity. We recognise our company’s complicity in the Gaza genocide and increasing involvement in unethical contracts. We therefore support our UCL colleagues’ campaign to boycott and divest from Google DeepMind.

1. Strengthen Google’s AI Principles

We call on Google to update its AI Principles to include a clear commitment that Google will not pursue or develop weapons or technologies whose primary purpose is to cause harm or injury to people, or to gather or use information for surveillance that violates internationally accepted human rights standards. Proposed New AI Principle: “We will not pursue weapons, technologies or contracts whose principal purpose, implementation or impact causes harm or directly facilitates injury to people, or gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms.” This principle must be upheld, regardless of shifting geopolitical pressures or interests. The commitment to human rights and ethical standards should remain steadfast and unaffected by changing political climates.

2. Clear Monitoring and Enforcement Procedures

In order to hold the company accountable, we urge Google to establish robust monitoring and enforcement mechanisms for its AI Principles. This includes: Actionable Accountability: Google should clearly define the consequences for any violations of the AI Principles and ensure these consequences are enforceable across all levels of the company. Proportional Consequences: Violations should be met with significant, proportionate actions, and no employee, regardless of seniority, should be exempt from accountability.

3. Independent Oversight and Whistleblower Protections

We call for the establishment of a transparent independent oversight system to ensure compliance with these principles: Independent Ethics Board: Form a body of respected experts in AI ethics, international law, and human rights that can review projects, investigate potential breaches, and issue reports accessible by all FTEs within GDM.

4. Transparency and Employee Involvement in Decision-Making

Google must lay out the process for how it might change these principles in the future, and how employees and stakeholders can shape such changes: Clear Decision-Making Processes: The Responsibility Safety Council (RSC) should provide transparency regarding which projects have been approved or rejected and the rationale behind those decisions. Employee Rights: Employees must be empowered to take action if they notice any shift in the company’s ethical values or principles.

5. The Right to Abstain

We demand that Google grant all employees the explicit right to abstain from working on any project that violates their personal moral or ethical standards, without fear of retaliation.

6. Negotiation Over Automation of Our Roles

As Google accelerates the development and deployment of AI systems capable of automating tasks currently performed by workers, we demand the company commits to meaningful negotiation with our union representatives before implementing any changes that materially affect our roles, workloads, or job security. ####This must include: #####Prior Consultation: Google must notify and consult with union representatives at the earliest possible stage when AI automation is being considered for tasks performed by current employees — not after decisions have already been made.

Impact Assessments: Any proposed automation must be accompanied by a transparent assessment of its impact on affected workers, including changes to headcount, role scope, required skills, and working conditions.

No Unilateral Displacement: Google must not use AI automation as a pretext for unilateral redundancies or role restructuring without first exhausting retraining, redeployment, and negotiated transition options.

Ongoing Review: A joint worker-management oversight body must be established to continuously review the deployment of AI automation across Google’s workforce, with union representatives having genuine standing to challenge or delay harmful implementations.

Google workers build and maintain the AI that powers all of Google’s products. We must not be excluded from decisions about how those systems are turned on us. The future of work at Google must be negotiated — not imposed.

7. Clean Energy for AI

The explosive growth of AI is driving a surge in energy consumption across Google’s global infrastructure. We demand that Google takes concrete, verifiable action to ensure this expansion does not come at the cost of our planet. We call on Google to commit to the following: No AI Powered by Oil/ Gas. Google must publish a credible, public plan that includes: Round-the-Clock Renewable Power: All data centres must be powered by 100% additional, locally-sourced renewable energy on a 24/7 basis — not offset by credits purchased elsewhere or averaged across the year. End Contracts That Accelerate Fossil Fuel Extraction: Google must cease developing or providing custom AI solutions for oil and gas companies whose purpose is to identify new reserves or accelerate drilling operations. Building the tools of climate destruction is incompatible with any genuine commitment to sustainability. A Climate Roadmap: Google must publish a detailed glidepath for meeting its climate commitments — one grounded in peer-reviewed science, independently verified, and with enforceable milestones. Vague net-zero pledges are not enough. AI must cease to be an accelerant for the climate crisis. As workers at the heart of this technology, we refuse to be complicit in building systems that consume vast natural resources without accountability. Google has the means to lead on clean energy — we demand it uses them.

How Does It Work?

A union starts simply: a group of colleagues who share concerns about their workplace decide to organise together. They expand their membership, agree on shared demands, and build the collective power needed to make the employer engage. Once the union has sufficient support, it seeks recognition from the employer — the formal right to negotiate on workers’ behalf. With recognition secured, the union sits down with the employer at the bargaining table, where it can negotiate on pay, hours, holidays, and more. The employer is legally obliged to engage. If the employer agrees to what is being asked, a collective agreement is reached — and those improved terms apply to everyone in the workplace. If the employer refuses to bargain in good faith, the union can escalate — ultimately up to and including a strike ballot, where members vote on whether to take industrial action to back up their demands. Throughout all of this, the union operates democratically. Members decide the demands, members vote on any deal, and members have the final say on whether to escalate.

What is union recognition?

Recognition is what gives your union the legal right to negotiate with the employer on workers’ behalf. Without recognition, the employer can simply ignore the union. With recognition they are legally obliged to engage. By securing union recognition workers gain formal rights to collective bargaining, disclosure of internal company information, and mandatory consultation on major workplace changes. When a union applies for recognition it defines the bargaining unit, which is the group of workers that it seeks to represent. For example, it can be all of Google DeepMind, or a smaller unit.

Recognition can happen two ways:

Voluntary Recognition

The employer simply agrees to work with the union. UTAW officially asked for voluntary recognition on May the 5th 2026 – read The Guardian article. For voluntary recognition to happen, at least 10% of the bargaining unit must be members, and the majority of members should vote in favour of the recognition. The vote is internal to the union.

Statutory Recognition

If an employer refuses, a union can apply to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) to force recognition if they can prove sufficient support among the workforce. For statutory recognition there is a minimum membership threshold (10% of the bargaining unit, which GDM workers have passed) and all employees in the unit are called to vote (ballot). A majority vote in favour is sufficient for the recognition. The recognition process ends with a recognition agreement. A recognition agreement is a formal document which sets out who is covered by the union (the bargaining unit), what issues can be negotiated, how bargaining meetings work, what facilities and time off reps are entitled to, and how disputes are resolved if the two sides cannot agree. A recognition agreement is not set in stone. It can be expanded, updated, or renegotiated over time, and doing so is often one of the union’s most important long-term goals.

What happens if recognition fails? The union will not be able to apply for statutory recognition in the same or similar bargaining unit for 3 years after a failed process. It can apply after one year in a different bargaining unit. Voluntary recognition can happen at any time. What demands can be discussed at the bargaining table? Where a union gains recognition through the statutory process, it has the legal right to bargain collectively over pay, hours, and holiday entitlement. These are the minimum issues covered by the recognition agreement, but the union can negotiate on a wider range of matters. Under voluntary recognition, the scope can be broader. The employer’s willingness to negotiate beyond the statutory floor depends largely on the union’s strength, and strength comes from membership. An employer facing a well-organised, high-membership workforce is incentivised to agree to a broad recognition agreement and engage seriously at the table. An employer facing a small, fragmented union has little pressure to go beyond the minimum. How are demands agreed upon? Demands are set through a democratic process: they come from the membership. This is what gives them legitimacy, both within the union and in the eyes of the employer.

Consultation Members are asked about their priorities through meetings, surveys, or conversations with reps. This is where the issues that matter most to workers are identified and collected.

Drafting Reps collate the feedback and draft a set of demands that reflects the membership’s priorities.

Approval Members vote on or approve the demands before they are formally presented to the employer. After approval, collective bargaining begins. This is where the demands are negotiated with the employer until a deal is reached. Collective bargaining is an ongoing process, not a one-off event, and new demands can be raised at any time through the same democratic process. There is no legal limit on what can be raised, provided it falls within the agreed scope of the recognition agreement.

Can demands be changed? Yes. Demands can be amended at several points in the process through the same democratic process that set them in the first place. Any significant change during negotiations should go back to members for approval.

How does a bargaining process end?

A deal is reached If a deal is reached over a set of demands, members need to vote to approve it. They can also reject it and instruct reps to return to the table.

A deal is not reached members can be balloted on whether to escalate, including through industrial action. What are our current demands? Our demands focus on: ethics and transparency, job automation, clean energy. Read the full list of our demands.

FAQ

Can I stay anonymous?

Yes. Your employer does not have a legal right to know if you are a member of a trade union. Unions keep their membership lists strictly confidential. Under Data Protection (UK GDPR), trade union membership is classified as “special category data,” meaning it requires the highest level of privacy protection. If the union pursues statutory recognition through the UK Government’s Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the CAC will need to verify the union has sufficient membership within the bargaining unit — typically at least 10% of workers. To do this, membership data may need to be submitted to the CAC, which is an independent governmental body. Critically, this data is not shared with Google. The CAC handles it confidentially, and the employer only sees the membership percentage. The law forbids employers from compiling lists of union members, see Blacklisting Regulations 2010, Reg. 3.

What legal protection are we entitled to?

Any questions?

Check also UTAW main FAQ page or contact us directly!

Read the original article at WIRED.

Read the original article at The Verge.

Read the original article at Business Insider.

Read the original article at The Guardian.

Google AI workers in pioneering union bid over Israel and U.S. military tech use

98% of Google DeepMind members vote YES.

Scores of Google AI workers have launched an unprecedented unionisation bid to end use of their technology by Israel and the US military.

The UK-based Google DeepMind employees - who aim to become the first frontier artificial intelligence lab worldwide to unionise - sent a letter on Tuesday requesting management recognise the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite the Union as their official representatives.

“This is a really important moment where tech workers at Google’s frontier AI lab are connecting with some of the most oppressed people in communities around the world in meaningful ways, based on foundational values of solidarity and trade unionism.”

“By exercising their rights to collectivise they are in a strong position to demand their employer stop circling the ethical drain of military-industrial contracts, echoing the sentiment of many working people in the UK and elsewhere.”

John Chadfield, CWU National Officer for Tech

Google employees have for years protested the ethics of contracts like Project Nimbus, a joint programme with Amazon making cloud computing and AI tools available to Israel, including amid the Gaza genocide. Maven, a US government project from which Google withdrew in 2019 after staff uproar, has reportedly been used in targeting in the Iran war.

The unionising DeepMind workers are seeking an end to use of Google AI by Israel and the US military. Their demands also include restoring a scrapped commitment not to make AI weapons or surveillance tools, the creation of an independent ethics oversight body, and the individual right to refuse to contribute to projects on moral grounds.

“We don’t want our AI models to assist in violations of international law, but they already are aiding Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.”

“Even if our work is only used for administrative purposes, as leadership has repeatedly told us, it is still helping make genocide cheaper, faster, and more efficient. That must end immediately, as must harm to Iranians and human lives anywhere.”

a worker at Google DeepMind

Google recently agreed to let the US Department of Defense use its AI models for classified work, a move opposed by over 600 employees. Google staff worry how the technology will be used given the Pentagon imposed restrictions on competitor Anthropic over its refusal to permit use of AI system Claude in fully autonomous deadly weapons or domestic mass surveillance.

The British unionisation push is part of a wider campaign. DeepMind employees globally are considering in-person protests and “research strikes”, where they abstain from work expected to significantly improve core products such as the Gemini AI assistant.

The unionisation bid would secure representation on pay, hours, and holidays for at least 1,000 staff tied to Google DeepMind’s London office. The employees’ letter gave management 10 working days to voluntarily recognise the CWU and Unite, or take other steps like agreeing to mediated negotiations, before the matter is escalated to a formal legal process to force recognition.

“I hope that recourse to the statutory procedure will not prove necessary.”

“We look forward to working with you in a spirit of co-operation on behalf of the workforce.”

John Chadfield, CWU National Officer for Tech

“When artificial intelligence is developed without any accountability over its direction or purpose, it is bad for society as a whole - not for just the workers involved.”

“These conscientious workers demanding greater say over what they produce with their considerable skills are acting in the tradition of all those who have fought for workers’ rights before them.”

Dave Ward, CWU General Secretary

In the press

The Guardian: Google DeepMind in talks with UK unions amid staff concern over US and Israel's AI use ↗

auth: The Guardian date: 20-May-2026 cat: Press cmpgn: Google tags: Press

Novara Media: Google AI Workers in UK Vote to Unionise Amid Deal With US Military ↗

auth: Novara Media date: 06-May-2026 cat: Press cmpgn: Google tags: Press

WIRED: Google DeepMind Workers Vote to Unionize Over Military AI Deals ↗

auth: WIRED date: 05-May-2026 cat: Press cmpgn: Google tags: Press

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Your workplace needs a union, and your laptop needs stickers, so pickup a booster pack of our new stickers and get organising.

To celebrate May Day, AKA international workers day, our Merch Working Group is excited to present another batch of very limited edition handmade mugs, made by Comrade Dani. Find these and more at our merch store.

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UTAW’s podcast, where Shireen, Eleaor & Edwin figure out what’s going on in tech, unions, politics and the internet.

This week everyone’s got somewhere else to be, but before they all rush off, there’s a housing special spectacular to record, where the committee put aside the usual trade union affairs to talk about the Renters Rights Act, with very special guest Dan G who’s doing bits with the London Renters Union.

Further Reading:

• Dubai: Playground of the Rich (I’m not linking it here but it’s all on Dailymotion, I’m sure you’ll find it)
• The Renters Rights Act: https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting/renters_rights_act_changes_for_private_renters
• Blackpool — Acorn Members in Revoe: https://acornuk.good.do/saverevoerefurbnotrebuild/refurbnotrebuild/
• National Housing Demo: www.nationalhousingdemo.org

The Motion:

“This podcast believe that homeowners should be banned from holding trade union officer positions.”

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

Across the tech industry, our employers are increasingly imposing RTO mandates, despite seeing improvements in the productivity, wellbeing and finances of employees who work from home. These changes often disproportionately affect parents, carers, people with disabilities and those on lower incomes. Sometimes these mandates are used to force people out so that employers can avoid following the legal redundancy process.

UTAW has a full RTO guide, which covers your individual rights from a contractual and employment law perspective.

But fights aren’t won individually, real change happens through collective action…

Recently the Office of National Statistics gave up forcing PCS members into the office because the members stood their ground and fought back collectively.

You can do this too!

What you can do before RTO is announced

Your best defence is always to handle it collectively.

• Build a strong workplace union now.
• You have very little power alone, but when working together, it becomes impossible for your management to ignore you.
• If you wait until RTO is announced, you’re already a step behind.
• By building your power now, you will be ready and organised to fight back when unpopular policies, such as RTO, AI and other attacks on your terms and conditions, happen.

What to do if RTO is announced

Get in touch with the reps team at UTAW for advice. Every situation is different, and sometimes submitting a Flexible Working Request immediately can be a mistake, so speak to a rep or ask for advice on the UTAW Discord first.

Speak to your colleagues, talk about it together, find out your common issues. Start planning your campaign!

All UTAW members have access to comprehensive organising training to give you the tools you need to build power in your workplace.

UTAW recently joined the Lift the Ban coalition, a group made up of trade unions, charities, and other organisations which seeks to have the government lift the ban on allowing asylum seekers to work in the UK while waiting for their asylum status.

We call on our members active in political parties and Trades Union Councils to encourage their parties and councils to join the coalition as well.

Asylum seekers are fleeing persecution and war and possess skills that would be an asset to the British economy. Despite this, they are forced to live on less than £7 a day (the current rate of support for asylum seekers) and are not allowed to contribute to the country they reside in. We call for this to end and for asylum seekers to have the right to work in this country.

Workers in Britain are facing a housing emergency. Average UK rent is rising faster than wages and inflation, and UK renters already spend more of their income on rent than almost anywhere else in Europe. When organised workers win increases in pay, these are being absorbed by landlords through ever greater rents. Despite the 1mn people on waiting lists, building of new council homes has stalled, all while the far right make hay, blaming working class migrants instead of government, developers and landlords.

Rent controls are urgently needed to shift the balance of power towards renters while we continue to campaign for what we really want - massive investment in council housing built on public land, run democratically and free from profit. We recognise that the housing crisis is a workers’ issue, and are supporting the National Housing Demo on 18th April at 1pm in Soho Square Gardens, London.

What is AI?

ok so verrrry broad terms about what AI is…

First, I have a short-ish version of what’s going on.

Then a longer version if you want a rough idea of how it’s actually working (explained by someone who scraped by in their undergrad degree lol)

the short version

“AI” is usually used to refer to “LLMs” - large language models. It’s a big mathematical model that takes in a large amount of text, converts it to “tokens”, and uses that to predict a result, also as text. (look there’s also images and now video butttt… it kinda does the same thing under the hood. it’s all “tokens”)

Each time an LLM is run, it works on a huge amount of calculations based on probabilities. These probabilities are worked out using training. This is a mostly automatic process where you have some input data which you know the result for, and you keep running the model over and over again and changing values until the results are close to what you expect.

Training and its energy impact

This training uses a lot of energy and data. Latest models are scouring the entire Internet, Wikipedia, textbooks, you name it, to find example data that they can use to train the models to guess the word that comes next. GPUs work quite well for this. So tech companies have been buying them all up…

Are they giving attribution or asking for permission…? Er… no. Usually not.

Running the model each time, even once the training is done, still requires loads of data, storage and energy. The environmental impact of the data usage means fossil fuel power plants are being brought back online. Tech companies are building miniature nuclear power plants just to keep up with the energy demand (small modular reactors. Data centers are stealing polluting water from surrounding land to keep their servers cool. We are going backwards on global emissions goals.

How many “r"s in “strawberry”?

Now remember I mentioned this is all based on probabilities? You betcha. This means that the output is never guaranteed. It makes mistakes, or “hallucinates”. The same input doesn’t always return the same thing. This means that LLM models can be unpredictable and work in unexpected ways. E.g., asking a model to add a list of numbers. Earlier models would convert the numbers to tokens, and because it sees something like “add these numbers” it will try to predict the output based on what it’s previously seen to come up next. This is why some models can’t even count the number of “r"s in “strawberry”.

An example. Asking GPT-4o to add up numbers.

Above: The correct answer, produced by Wolfram Alpha

Above: GPT-4o mini’s attempt.

Other models will predict that, say, there’s a list of numbers to add up, and then call upon a program to sum them before giving it back to the model to return as an answer, for instance. This is how a lot of modern LLMs now work, they are able to access a range of tools and programs to work in multiple steps to predict an answer. This is why, e.g. when you run Notion AI, you can see it print out a load of information as this process unfolds. It’s often known as “multi-stage reasoning”.

Prompts and prompt injection

A “prompt” is another word for the text input someone gives to an LLM. It can be a question, instructions and can get quite detailed.

Prompts can often be saved, used and shared as a way of encouraging an LLM to work in a certain way or provide a certain type of answer. You often hear these referred to as “skills”, “gems”, “custom GPTs”, that kind of thing. For instance, you might have one that says something like source:

Everything is fed as input into the LLM in the same way and converted into tokens the same. The chat history and the prompt used to try and control the behaviour of the model. It’s all treated the same, although by trying to separate separate bits of information like humans do in their writing (horizontal lines, headings, spaces) can try to influence these. Using strong, imperative language and even ALL CAPS can try to steer the model further into the behaviour the author wants.

Since the chat history and the original prompt are both treated the same way, does that mean the person sending messages to the customer support could use the same techniques to get the model to do what they want, even if the author didn’t want this?

…yeeeessss.

This is called prompt injection and it’s basically unfixable because of how these models operate (source). It’s been used to send malicious calendar invites to steal private information with Gemini. It’s an incredibly difficult problem!

Other bits

So there’s also the idea that because LLMs are trained on publicly available data, and more data online is being produced by LLMs, there’s this weird phenomenon where these models are training on themselves and converging towards “average” results. The Claude Opus 4.6 model has a reduced performance compared to 4.5. Generated images are increasingly becoming streaked with piss yellow because everyone in 2015 was using the X-Pro 2 filter on Instagram. “Model collapse” is something that some people believe to be an inevitability. I mean. People are sharing techniques for trying to get rid of the tint:

But also it means that when LLMs “hallucinate”, these can find their way into articles and blog posts. This finds its way into training data and now these fake statements become reinforced as “facts” according to future LLMs. It’s affecting journalism and resulted in an editor being fired. It’s alarming quite how much of the Internet is now being polluted with lies and slop.

The companies behind LLMs are morally bankrupt and are subsidised heavily by private equity. A recent Forbes article suggests Anthropic could be running up to $5,000 of computing power for a user spending $200… A lot of OpenAI’s funding is reliant on it “achieving AGI” (that’s Artificial General Intelligence, just a buzzword for a model that is smarter than a human) within a certain timeframe and it’s just not getting there. Ed Zitron has a fascinating and long article that dives into the OpenAI financials.

They are complicit in the current wars, despite the press releases. Claude has been used by the department of defence to help select targets for bombing. OpenAI seem to have no qualms about automated killbots (until they were caught). They are evil companies run by evil people.

Ok so that’s kinda about it off the top of my head. Below is a more in-depth explanation of how LLMs work if you’re interested.

(neural networks) what came first…

so like, in computing there’s a thing called a neural network. It’s essentially a program that takes some kind of inputs (like numbers!) and then does a bunch of calculations on them, combining and splitting results multiple times, to get an output (could be a number, a true/false, anything like that).

a lot of those calculations work on probabilities, so like, a certain calculation might have an 80% chance of returning a large value over a smaller one. stuff like that. these probabilities are worked out by taking a bunch of input data where we know the answer we want, and running this model over and over again, tweaking these probabilities each time to get the results closer and closer to those answers. this is what training is!

This happens on a huuuge scale. There’s many different calculations running (1000s to even millions!), a large number of inputs, and results being passed to further layers in the system. you could think of it as bit like this:

Where each of those circles is some kind of calculation (a neuron!) and each line is some kind of value being passed between it.

Even at a small scale like this, it can be really hard to unpick and work out why one set of inputs leads to an output. The idea is that it works in the same way a brain does. Lots of neurons firing and sending information around to return something that is correct, trained thousands or millions of times with learning data. (“reinforcement learning”).

You can use this for all sorts of cool things! If you imagine images as just a set of pixels with a number that represents its colour, a picture quickly just becomes a list of numbers. Standardise the data, feed it into a network, see if what comes out matches what you expect. Change the probabilities and run it again and see if it gets closer.

anndddd boom. You’ve just created something that can recognise text in images…

this powers pretty much everything in the world. tiktok algorithms, “dynamic pricing” in restaurants, shipping routes, speech to text on your phone. even on iphones, there’s a hidden model that runs on the keyboard that will grow and shrink the keys depending on what you type so you make fewer typus!

ok so now for AI

in the early 2010s, some computer scientists came up with this idea of a “transformer model”. it’s the same kind of thing except that it not only runs multiple networks at the same time, but can share results between them and look back and forwards across the data it receives. it’s now able to remember stuff. this is a “context”, which is a word that comes up so often in AI lol. but it means that one model is able to look at another model to figure out the “context” of what it’s currently looking at.

it makes training a lot easier since there’s no weird loops happening inside the model which for reasons I won’t go into, makes training faster. google dropped a paper at some point called “attention is all you need” and that was the hot shit at the time. this whole idea of being able to figure out the context of a bit of data meant that they got a lot better at being able to ‘understand’ words, language, things. it meant that a model that looks at images can figure out objects and shapes.

“AI” when its talked about at the moment usually refers to a “Large Language Model” or LLM. It’s a model operating on a huge amount of input data - human language. Transformer models are able to take a stream of text and break it down into words and phrases. Older neural networks would just treat it all as a big list of letters. This means that the model is able to simulate “reasoning” across sentences and paragraphs. The “memory” it keeps means that if a “cool cat” was mentioned at the start of the paragraph, it would be “remembered” later on when the LLM is processing a phrase about “the animal”.

This is really how a chatbot like ChatGPT or Gemini works in a basic level! When you send a message, your message and all of the messages in the chat history are turned into a big block of text and sent into an LLM. The LLM will then processes all of the text, turning it into tokens along the way, and then predicting the “most likely” answer.

Images, voice, it all works the same way. Everything is converted to tokens and run through a model and an answer is predicted.

This works okay for things like categorising data, converting speech to text, and picking out themes. It works to a slightly lesser extent for summarising large amounts of text, since its predictions are based on how similar sets of tokens (how similar pieces of writing) in its training were summarised. It can detect common themes or significant points, but can often struggle with prioritising what’s actually important. Because it’s not thinking, it’s predicting based on the data it’s been trained on.

This is why things like Gemini meeting summaries will often focus on small and insignificant things, like “the team discussed their morning commutes” over something like “the team raised concerns about the project’s ethics”. It’s all prediction, and it’s all based on probability. So there’s a chance it will do something unexpected and incorrect, and most often when you’re doing something new.

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UTAW’s podcast, where Shireen, Eleaor & Edwin figure out what’s going on in tech, unions, politics and the internet.

Buckle up for a marathon episode during which the committee covers Lord Mayors, the Together Alliance, Lammy, Robbie, Aunty, Galloway, and are joined by special guest Abby to talk dumping Labour.

Further Reading:

• BBC Archive: 

• Last Days on Grand Parade: youtube.com/watch?v=zgpK5YxqmDo

• Blessed are the Tea Ladies: youtube.com/watch?v=ZOg08w8jyZU

• The Office Christmas Party: youtube.com/watch?v=OxAzCyCY7Ms

• CWU Letter to Branches: Special Report — Labour Party Relationship: https://www.cwu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/26LTB60.pdf

• Manchester South RMT Merch: https://manchester-south-rmt.teemill.com/

The Motion:

“Solidarity strikes should be legalised across companies in the same venture capital portfolio.”

Submit your motions to the committee to wwww@utaw.tech, or on Instagram @utaw_uk.

Version History:

• 6.0.1 - 2026-04-04 - opsec audio fix.
• 6.0.0 - 2026-04-03 - initial release.

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

Did you know that as a disabled worker, you have the right to request changes at work that help you do your job? It’s the law!

What are reasonable adjustments?

Reasonable adjustments are changes an employer makes to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to someone’s disability. For example:

• finding a different way to do something
• making changes to the workplace
• changing someone’s working arrangements
• providing equipment, services or support

A disability is any long-term condition (i.e. one that lasts 12 months or more) which adversely affects someone’s ability to carry out day-to-day activities.

This can include neurodivergence and mental health conditions, so long as the above criteria are met.

Reasonable Adjustment vs Flexible Working Requests

Reasonable adjustments are not the same as a flexible working request. Anybody can make a flexible working request, regardless of disability status.

Key features of an approved flexible working request (i.e. a flexible working arrangement) are:

1. It will usually result in a permanent change to your contract (for example by fixing which days/hours you work); and
2. The employer has a statutory right to refuse the request.

For more on this, see our guide on it here.

In contrast, a reasonable adjustment is a measure that is agreed to help someone who has a disability to assist them perform at work.

Having a reasonable adjustment does not mean that your terms of employment change, but it is put in place for as long as necessary to allow you to work.

An employer’s failure to properly deal with a reasonable adjustment request could result in discrimination.

Who can ask for reasonable adjustments?

Whether you’re an employee, contractor, or just applying for a job; companies must make reasonable adjustments for disabled workers when requested.

What does “reasonable” mean? This depends on context.

A large company has more resources than a small one and would therefore have to do more.For example, a small specialised team may be less able to re-distribute workload than a large department.

What do reasonable adjustments look like in practice?

Whatever you need to make your work, work!

Here are some examples of Reasonable Adjustments our UTAW Reps helped members win:

Flexible 15-minute window for a neurodiverse member who experiences time blindness. Fixed length task assignments for a neurodiverse member who needed extra structure and planning in her job. Extra breaks for a member with IBS. Additional time to pray for many Muslim members specifically at Apple Stores. Increased time spent on seated assignments for a member with a bad back. Lower height desk for a short member with a bad ankle. Job interview questions ahead of time, for a neurodiverse member. Disciplinary questions ahead of time and/or in writing, for many neurodiverse members facing disciplinary proceedings.Longer toilet breaks for a member with stomach issues. Space to store a wheelchair for a member who uses a wheelchair.

How do I get a reasonable adjustment?

The first step is to first check your company’s policies.

We would suggest that you request a Reasonable Adjustment in writing using a template like this one: [https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/350]

It’s important that the changes help you manage your health and work while also being possible for your employer to implement: they’re practical, affordable, and won’t negatively impact colleagues.

Note: when dealing with employers, it’s important you get everything in writing. We recommend saving correspondence somewhere safe where you can access it off of company device so you have a record of what has been discussed.

If you are not sure what reasonable adjustment(s) you want, but you know that you need some help due to your disadvantage, you should request an occupational health assessment.

What will the employer do?

An employer’s response should be to seek advice on your request. This is usually done by asking for an occupational health (OH) assessment.

Larger companies may be able to undertake them in-house. Smaller companies are less likely to be able to do so, but they usually have a contract with a specialist provider.

The employer should not refuse to undertake an OH assessment. If it does, it could give rise to a legal claim. Please ensure that you retain all evidence of what happens – it is best to communicate in writing.

What if my employer isn’t convinced I need an adjustment?

As noted above, if your employer isn’t sure what adjustments are best or whether you need one, they can ask for medical advice, like an occupational health assessment or for more information from your doctor, with your consent.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Employers should consult with YOU on what questions to ask the occupational health practitioner. In practice, they rarely do this. You can ask for a copy of the referral letter. You can justify your request by saying that you want to make sure that the correct questions are being asked. You can also ask to see the report before it is sent to your employer.

What if my employer refuses (fails to make a reasonable adjustment)?

If your employer does not make a reasonable adjustment it could be disability discrimination.

Your employer should:

• Talk to you about their decision
• Explain the reasoning of their decision
• Your employer should find another way to support you, like making other adjustments

If you’re still not happy that your needs are being met, you can put in a formal complaint. This could be a grievance. At this stage though, we recommend you get in touch with UTAW and we’ll support you with what to do next.

Finally…

Share this article with someone who needs to know!

And if you work in tech and want to fight for a better workplace, join us and get organised.

UTAW Member Reasonable Adjustment Wins

And if you’re not convinced that being a UTAW member is worth it, here are some reasonable adjustments our reps won for members.

NOTE: this information has been anonymised to protect our members privacy.

The employer wanted to impose a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) on our Member, mainly because they said he was not performing. The member’s response was that it was due to his ADHD. The pressure caused him to go off with ‘stress at work’. No formal procedures followed – i.e. they wanted to put him on a PIP without first telling him he was not performing at the right level.

We managed to get the employer to follow its processes (i.e. its own policies). This meant that the member was not put on a PIP, but went through an OH referral and got help.

DR

The member was looking to get reasonable adjustments in place to change shifts due to an anxiety disorder. They requested set shifts inline with what the doctor recommended. The employer denied.

We went through ACAS and then filed for an employment tribunal. A few days before the first tribunal date they offered a settlement. After negotiation we settled with both a set shift pattern, close to what the member wanted and a cash settlement of £3000. This was because the member had done nothing wrong and we were suing the company for compensation for the way the member had been treated.

MM

The member was struggling with anxiety and depression. Their employer wanted them in the office 2 days a week, they asked for it to just be 1. Their employer refused. We stepped in making clear that it was their right to have this reasonable adjustment. After a grievance and appeal our member can now work from home for 4 days a week.

DJ

The Member was subjected to a disciplinary. The Member argued with rep assistance that the behaviour arose from a disability and a lack of reasonable adjustments. It was argued that the manager had not been reviewing RAs regularly and a number of recommendations from an OH report from 2 years ago were never acknowledged or actioned. The company aborted the disciplinary process and instead embarked on a new OH assessment and undertook a review of reasonable adjustments, with the manager directly supported by HR in this process.

RS

Our member had a Flexible Working Request (FWR) in place (member was also likely to have protected characteristics - he has health conditions that could mean he is disabled).

The company was seeking to amend his working hours, which meant he effectively no longer had a FWR. The Member was unhappy with the new hours and no agreement was in sight after a few meetings. The employer did not want to lose him, as he was a good performer but wanted to impose the new terms/hours.

The Member was not willing to agree so it meant that we had to spell out that imposing the new terms would be dismissal and re-engagement and therefore a potential Employment Tribunal claim.

Following this, they agreed to find a pattern that suited everyone.

PS

The employer wanted to impose a (personal improvement plan) PIP without following occupational health (OH) recommendations.

We managed to get the employer to agree to reasonable adjustments before starting the PIP. This meant our members’ targets were lower under the PIP.

ZG

The employer wanted to make our Member ‘redundant’. I advised him that the process seems to be age discrimination. The Member did eventually leave under a Settlement Agreement but on improved terms: he was close to 3 years’ service so they agreed to give him 3 years’ redundancy payment as part of the settlement.

RS

Member was being disciplined for a breach of the drugs policy (he used and shared cannabis at work).

The member ought to have been sacked for this (certainly for sharing – although it was not selling).

The member had a medical prescription for cannabis.

We managed to get HR to, (1) not sack him; (2) get an OH assessment for what would help him (ADHD/ASD); (3) seek legal advice on a fair process to follow

All of this took a few months – this was my first case for UTAW. Up to now, we have gotten him 7 months extra pay.

The member was put at risk in September and has taken Voluntary Redundancy (to be finalised in March), so we will have got him a year’s pay + an enhanced redundancy package.

TP

The member was coming back to work following extended time off as sick leave. We managed to ensure she got a phased return and support in reintegrating.

So far, so good. Our member seems to be getting on well there.

SK

The member was being asked to leave for a combination of sickness absence and redundancy, both of which were questionable - in truth, the employer probably wanted someone that had different skills (Member was the social media manager) and no health issues (this was unsaid).

We asserted our member’s rights (redundancy and EA 2010) and got a settlement - (around 4 months’ pay in total), agreed reference, plus waiver of restrictive covenants.

GG

Get ready to march against the far right this Saturday!

We’ll be at the Together Against the Far Right national demonstration, joining our fellow CWU branches in the union bloc on Park Lane (closest address is 33 Park Lane). We’re assembling at 12pm and the march will leave at 1pm to arrive in Whitehall by 2pm. You can find us by searching out our UTAW banners, members are travelling from all over the country so no one will be marching alone!

It will be a busy march, so consider joining our Discord (link in your welcome email or message us for a new one) to chat with fellow attendees if you want to say hi beforehand.

Some UTAW members will be bringing along food and water, but don’t forget to bring your own stash just in case. Once at Whitehall, there will be performances to enjoy so get prepared for a day of joy, togetherness and community and to unite against the far right together.

You can find loads more information on togetheralliance.co.uk including a map, key information on the march route and previews of who is performing.

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The committee is back, after an unfortunate hiatus resulting from an attempted (FAILED) insurrection. Find out where we’ve been, why we’ve been there, why we’re sorry about it and how we’re going to make amends.

This episode: Affairs of the Olympiad, New comrades in Ireland, Protests at Google, a union ballot at Apple, Shireen goes Green, Wes’ Revenge, The Mandelson Files and a very happy birthday to Andrew.

Further reading:

• Fast ice skating where they go round: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRPxjCHs/
• Vice: Everything We Know About the Olympic Curling Cheating Scandal: https://www.vice.com/en/article/even-curling-isnt-immune-to-olympic-cheating-scandals/
• DATA-CWU - the union for tech workers in Ireland: https://www.datacwu.ie
• Including guidance on children who are questioning their gender in ‘Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE)’: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/including-guidance-on-children-who-are-questioning-their-gender-in-kcsie/including-guidance-on-children-who-are-questioning-their-gender-in-keeping-children-safe-in-education-kcsie
• Times New Resistance: https://www.abbyhaddican.com/times-new-resistance
• Green Shireen: https://www.instagram.com/shireen_asaw

The Motion:

“WWWW believes that unions should engage in political struggle.”

Submit your motions to the committee to wwww@utaw.tech, or on Instagram @utaw_uk.

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

UTAW stands in solidarity with Iranian and Lebanese workers currently under bombardment by the United States of America and Israel.

The Iranian people deserve self determination, to choose their government by democratic means, not through an external regime change war intended to destabilise the country and cement U.S. control over the region and its resources. We condemn the military action, and call for an immediate ceasefire.

We also demand that the British government withdraw its troops, arms and intelligence from the region.

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London Met Research Assistant Alison MacKinnon joins the committee to talk about layoffs at the university. Grok gets cancelled, UTAW wins big, and we decide whether speaking Bri’ish is a protected characteristic.

• Times Higher Education - “Union brands London Met cuts an ‘act of institutional vandalism’”: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/union-brands-london-met-cuts-act-institutional-vandalism or “archived” link: https://archive.is/hikiu
• People Make Games - “Rockstar vs. Union: We Went to Court and Saw the Evidence”: https://youtu.be/dnuipPQDd_w?si=BqdEG2JF3SFMAjTq
• CWU.ie - Covalen: https://www.cwu.ie/2026/01/14/cwu-press-release-covalen/
• My Co-Worker Pretended to be British for 3 Years: https://www.reddit.com/r/coworkerstories/comments/1l3idhy/my_coworker_pretended_to_be_british_for_3_years/
• What you need to know about lying on your CV: https://bsquarelaw.co.uk/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-complexities-of-lying-on-your-cv/
• Geordie stroke victim now ‘speaks like Jamaican’: https://youtu.be/JF56cDpB0r0?si=L7w-agNGRJqIxS5E, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/04/health.healthandwellbeing
• Follow UCU London Met and UCU London: https://x.com/ucu_londonmet, https://x.com/uculondon, https://uculondonregion.wordpress.com/, https://www.facebook.com/share/195yYeYbqb/?mibextid=wwXIfr,
• Follow Alison MacKinnon https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-mackinnon-317a63236?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Submit your motions to the committee to wwww@utaw.tech, or on Instagram @utaw_uk.

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

22.5% across the board

£8000 per member

UTAW-CWU members at Mitie have won a historic pay rise.

In 2025, the remote engineering team, based in Northern Ireland, secured union recognition with UTAW-CWU. Following successful negotiations on their first pay claim, members have now accepted a huge, inflation-busting pay deal. When workers unionise, pay goes up.

United Tech & Allied Workers is the UK’s first trade union run for and by tech workers, and is a national branch of the Communication Workers Union.

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The holiday spirit brings about a giving of thanks, a summary of slop, and a prophecy of trash. The ghosts of unions past, present and future, Shireen Asaw, Eleanor Payne and Edwin Dorley return for a Workers of the World Wide Web holiday special.

_This episode is brought to you by The People’s Prop Department patreon.com/protestprops and the UTAW Scarf _https://utaw.shop/products/scarf/

Further Reading:

• Slade in Flame (1975) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slade_in_Flame
• Expresso Bongo (1959) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOsPd2NmV0w
• Employment Rights Bill - Deadlock Broken https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/deadlock-broken-employment-rights-bill-passes
• Andrea Egan is Unison’s new GS https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/12/unison-isnt-new-labours-playground-anymore
• Resident Doctors Strike https://novaramedia.com/2025/12/19/doctor-strangled-by-police-officer-until-she-passed-out-at-hunger-strike-protest/
• TikTok signs deal to avoid US ban https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgexp1q8wn1o
• OpenAI Hires George Osborne https://www.ft.com/content/a6a8c7aa-9677-4208-a28e-a3ca51cb7aa3
• Microsoft Scales Back AI because no one is using it https://www.extremetech.com/computing/microsoft-scales-back-ai-goals-because-almost-nobody-is-using-copilot
• Let’s unpack our toxic fixation with ‘the TikToker who fell in love with her psychiatrist’ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2025-08-15/tiktok-woman-loves-psychiatrist-why-were-obsessed
• Steam Deck https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
• Stray https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332010/Stray/
• Headphones to sleep in https://www.soundcore.com/uk/products/sleep-a20-sleeping-earbuds
• Flow Neuroscience https://www.flowneuroscience.com/shop/
• Rats Playing Doom https://ratsplaydoom.com/

WWWW003, recorded 19 December 2025, in high definition digital stereo audio.

Workers of the World Wide Web is a production of United Tech & Allied Workers, the UK’s first (and best) trade union for tech workers.

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

A holiday special from the United Trans & Allied Workers #Merch Working Group. Like all great works, designed by committee. A blue, pink & white scarf to keep your neck warm while on the picket line this holiday season. Did you know that we lose up to 100% of our heat through our necks? Well worry no more, this “thick knit” jacquard scarf is made from 100% great quality acrylic and will keep you out marching long into the wintry night. Buy one for the comrade cutie in your life this Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa / Winterval, and maybe Lunar New Year, unless we’re sold out by then, or it’s like, not so bloody cold. I didn’t include Diwali in the list of holidays because we sort of missed the boat on that one, I guess you could stock up for next year? Choose your own festival, but choose our scarf. Alright I’m done writing copy for the year. Peace out.

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Data centres in the shed, using AI to talk to the other side, a messy bill, some bad eggs, and a lil bit of self-crit. Shireen Asaw, Eleanor Payne and Edwin Dorley are your committee du jour.

The motion: “should managers join trade unions?” (submit your motions to this committee at wwww@utaw.tech)

Further Reading:

• Cory Doctorow’s For The Win & Enshitification.
• Data centres in the shed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpy7envr5o
• AI avatars of dead relatives: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/black-mirror-becomes-reality-new-app-lets-users-talk-to-ai-avatars-of-deceased-loved-ones-3283056/
• What’s really going on with AI and jobs?: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-ai
• The Employment Rights Bill: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3737
• Sir Keir Starmer involved in road collision with cyclist: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54701336

Look the audio quality sucks, we’re going to get some microphones once we’ve done a couple of episodes to see if this has any staying power, relax.

Unused titles for this episode:

• “Parasocial relationship with my AI Grandma”
• “AI Early Man”
• “Streeting is Seeded”
• “If you can’t spot the centrist in the room, it’s you”

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

Limited edition hand-made, hand-painted mugs, made by elite union rep and mugsmith Comrade Dani. Get one for the comrade in your life, or to leave in the kitchenette at work as a union-recruitment vector.

This is the second batch of unique mugs - each one is different. There are 6 mugs in this batch, see the images for a front and back view of each mug. Do good comradely deeds to increase your union-essence to be in with a greater chance of securing mug. Assume your every move is being watched and noted by our agents.

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UTAW’s podcast, where Shireen, Eleaor & Edwin figure out what’s going on in tech, unions, politics and the internet.

Welcome to Workers of the World Wide Web, a brand new podcast about tech workers and the tech they work on, from United Tech & Allied Workers, the UK’s first trade union for tech.

On the agenda this week, Shireen Asaw, Eleanor Payne, Vanessa Heron-Hua and Edwin Dorley establish some ground rules, talk about Rockstar committing Grand Theft Union-Busting and catch up on the latest AI cons.

The motion this week: “should trade unions disaffiliate from labour?”

Submit your motions to be voted on by this committee in their next meeting, to wwww@utaw.tech.

• IWGB: Staff at Rockstar fired en masse
• IWGB Game workers
• Futurism: Founder Admits His “AI Transcription” Startup Was Just Him Joining People’s Meetings and Taking Notes by Hand
• The LinkedIn post
• Microsoft: Measuring the Applicability of Generative AI to Occupations
• Blood in the Machine: AI Killed My Job: Translators
• UTAW.tech/join

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

A black t-shirt that boldly proclaims ’the comrade-wearer is aware of video games’, with a logo that is clearly distinct from any video game franchises known to this copywriter.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. DTG printing by I Dress Myself, using 100% solvent free, water-based, eco-friendly, GOTS organic inks, printed in Somerset. T-Shirts are supplied by Sanley/Stella. Single Jersey, 100% Cotton - Organic Combed Ring Spun, 180 GSM. Fabric washed. Weaving, dyeing and assembly in Bangladesh. Stanley/Stella is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation which works with trade unions, NGOs, governments and factories to ensure a better standard of working conditions and wages for workers.

Sizing: XS — chest: 47.5cm, length: 65cm S — chest: 49.5cm, length: 69cm M — chest: 53.5cm, length: 73cm L — chest: 56.5cm, length: 75cm XL — chest: 59.5cm, length: 77cm XXL — chest: 63.5cm, length: 79cm 3XL — chest: 67.5cm, length: 81cm

This red t-shirt has a little UTAW logo on the front, and a big one on the back, for 360° output to minimise downtime.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. Screenprinted by EHC Screenprinting on T-Shirts from No Sweat. No Sweat T-shirts are made by Oporajeo – a workers’ initiative in Bangladesh set up by survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster. Oporajeo workers earn a living wage, in decent conditions and have democratic control of their work. Oporajeo is a carbon neutral factory that offsets emissions with their own tree planting project. No Sweat T-shirts are made from GOTS certified organic cotton, using azo-free dye and a ETP water filtration system.Solidarity: Profits from the T-shirts are used to fund No Sweat campaigns and put into a Garment Worker Solidarity Fund to support independent trade unions around the world organising in the garment industry.

100% Organic Cotton - fully traceable certified Global Organic Textile Standard and Oeko-Tex Standard 100

Sizing: XS — chest: 44cm, length: 66cm S — chest: 48cm, length: 70cm M — chest: 52cm, length: 73cm L — 56cm, length: 76cm XL — 60cm, length: 78cm 2XL — 66cm, length: 80cm 3XL — 68cm, length: 81cm

This black t-shirt has a little UTAW logo on the front, and a big one on the back, so you can show your boss that you’re a union memeber from both directions.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. Screenprinted by EHC Screenprinting on T-Shirts from No Sweat. No Sweat T-shirts are made by Oporajeo – a workers’ initiative in Bangladesh set up by survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster. Oporajeo workers earn a living wage, in decent conditions and have democratic control of their work. Oporajeo is a carbon neutral factory that offsets emissions with their own tree planting project. No Sweat T-shirts are made from GOTS certified organic cotton, using azo-free dye and a ETP water filtration system.Solidarity: Profits from the T-shirts are used to fund No Sweat campaigns and put into a Garment Worker Solidarity Fund to support independent trade unions around the world organising in the garment industry.

100% Organic Cotton - fully traceable certified Global Organic Textile Standard and Oeko-Tex Standard 100

Sizing: XS — chest: 44cm, length: 66cm S — chest: 48cm, length: 70cm M — chest: 52cm, length: 73cm L — 56cm, length: 76cm XL — 60cm, length: 78cm 2XL — 66cm, length: 80cm 3XL — 68cm, length: 81cm

Show solidarity with soul, with the lowest latency labourers in the game. A white t-shirt, with a graphic on the font of a hand holding an ethernet cable.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. Screenprinted by EHC Screenprinting on T-Shirts from No Sweat. No Sweat T-shirts are made by Oporajeo – a workers’ initiative in Bangladesh set up by survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster. Oporajeo workers earn a living wage, in decent conditions and have democratic control of their work. Oporajeo is a carbon neutral factory that offsets emissions with their own tree planting project. No Sweat T-shirts are made from GOTS certified organic cotton, using azo-free dye and a ETP water filtration system.Solidarity: Profits from the T-shirts are used to fund No Sweat campaigns and put into a Garment Worker Solidarity Fund to support independent trade unions around the world organising in the garment industry.

100% Organic Cotton - fully traceable certified Global Organic Textile Standard and Oeko-Tex Standard 100

Sizing: XS — chest: 44cm, length: 66cm S — chest: 48cm, length: 70cm M — chest: 52cm, length: 73cm L — 56cm, length: 76cm XL — 60cm, length: 78cm 2XL — 66cm, length: 80cm 3XL — 68cm, length: 81cm

An off-white t-shirt with green print, the graphic on the front shows the wearer knows what to do with their fists: build networks and cable-manage effectively. The back shows the UTAW sigil.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. Screen printing by I Dress Myself, using 100% solvent free, water-based, eco-friendly, GOTS organic inks, printed in Somerset. T-Shirts are supplied by Sanley/Stella. Single Jersey, 100% Cotton - Organic Combed Ring Spun, 180 GSM. Fabric washed. Weaving, dyeing and assembly in Bangladesh. Stanley/Stella is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation which works with trade unions, NGOs, governments and factories to ensure a better standard of working conditions and wages for workers.

Sizing: XS — chest: 47.5cm, length: 65cm S — chest: 49.5cm, length: 69cm M — chest: 53.5cm, length: 73cm L — chest: 56.5cm, length: 75cm XL — chest: 59.5cm, length: 77cm XXL — chest: 63.5cm, length: 79cm 3XL — chest: 67.5cm, length: 81cm

By far our most popular product when ranked in terms of customer satisfaction, this pink t-shirt features Poopy, a comrade who uses their working time effectively to read up on the latest goings-on in their trade union.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. DTG printing by I Dress Myself, using 100% solvent free, water-based, eco-friendly, GOTS organic inks, printed in Somerset. T-Shirts are supplied by Sanley/Stella. Single Jersey, 100% Cotton - Organic Combed Ring Spun, 180 GSM. Fabric washed. Weaving, dyeing and assembly in Bangladesh. Stanley/Stella is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation which works with trade unions, NGOs, governments and factories to ensure a better standard of working conditions and wages for workers.

Sizing: XS — chest: 47.5cm, length: 65cm S — chest: 49.5cm, length: 69cm M — chest: 53.5cm, length: 73cm L — chest: 56.5cm, length: 75cm XL — chest: 59.5cm, length: 77cm XXL — chest: 63.5cm, length: 79cm 3XL — chest: 67.5cm, length: 81cm

Read the original article at The Independent.

A very special badge for our very good union reps. For every rep who’s been asked by a manager to show their “Union ID”, this badge demands the respect commensurate with the station, “talk to the badge cos the face ain’t listening”.

Strictly no stealing of valour, these badges are for union reps only.

These badges are free to those who have done their rep training. See the #reps channel of the UTAW Discord for a very special 100% off discount code. If you don’t have access to that channel, jog on and peruse our other votive offerings, scab.

Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE)

The TUPE regulations were introduced to protect your rights when you are forced into a situation where you must change employer.

There are two main types of TUPE transfers

1. Business transfers
2. Service provision changes

Business transfers are where your employer is moved from one to another indefinitely (the more technical wording is “as a going concern”), i.e. not temporarily. For example, if two companies merge.

Service provision changes cover changes to do with both outsourcing and insourcing:

• Where your role is contracted out to another employer e.g. all internal IT services are moved to an outsourced contractor.

• When your role is moved to another service provider e.g. the choice of outsourced contractor is changed.

• When your role is moved back in-house e.g. the internal IT services roles outsourced to your employer are brought back in-house).

There are several caveats on who and when the TUPE regulations apply

• Only applies to employees, not other types of workers,

• Only triggers when your employer’s legal identity changes,

• Applies across the public, private, and voluntary sector (intra-governmental transfers are covered by something separate, however, called COSOP, which we won’t be covering here),

• Applies no matter the number affected - even a single employee can be considered protected under this regulation,

• Can apply when the job is transferred outside of the UK and Europe/the EU,

• Applies to internal reorganisations, e.g. employees moving from one subsidiary to another under a group,

• The two-year service requirement is still required for unfair dismissal under TUPE.

When you transfer under TUPE, you retain your rights

All of your individual terms and conditions must remain the same. There are only 3 reasons that these can be changed during (and after) a TUPE transfer:

• You have agreed to the change

• The change is unrelated to the transfer

• There is a valid economic, technical, or organisational reason.

There are also specific things that an employer cannot do to avoid giving you these rights:

• Cannot enter contractual terms to opt out of TUPE regulations,

• Any contractual terms that breach TUPE are considered void,

• They cannot pick or choose who moves over - if it’s your role that’s moving, you are moving (if you don’t object, of course).

And for the few of us (for now!) that have collective agreements:

• Collective agreement rights are retained for 1 year after the transfer date. After which, these can be changed as long as the new terms are no less favourable when considered together.

• National/Sector collective agreement rights, such as negotiated pay rises, are not retained unless the new employer agrees to be bound by the agreement.

The only exception is that if you had an occupational pension, this specifically does not transfer.

Trade union recognition

Recognition agreements transfer automatically as long as the unit test that was originally satisfied during recognition is still met. The wording is specifically that the transferring group “maintains an identity distinct from the remainder of the transferee’s undertaking”. You can understand this simply as if the original unit test were being applied again, would it still stand up?

For example, if you transfer and join a team of others or are doing the same role in a different context, then it would not stand. If it were the same grouping as previously, then it would.

If the recognition wouldn’t transfer because of the above, you are back at step 1 of organising a union at work (but with way more experience than others, and way more likely to succeed!)

Objecting to a transfer

When you object to a transfer, your employment contract automatically ends, but you are not treated as being dismissed. You also lose the right to claim redundancy or unfair dismissal (as it was a voluntary action). The original employer can take you back on when you object, but this is considered entering a completely new contract, and you lose the rights to retain your previous terms and conditions of employment.

There is an exception in place where the transfer would cause substantial detriment, but this objection must be made before the transfer, as it is not possible to transfer under protest. In the case where this is true, you can consider yourself dismissed, and you can follow an unfair dismissal claim.

You should take your time and get as much advice as possible before objecting to a transfer. This type of claim is incredibly difficult and high-risk, and it’s likely that it will take a long time to get through the tribunal system in the meantime.

The definition of “employees” is different under TUPE

Usually, the definition of employees is pulled from the Employment Rights Act. In this case, TUPE expands this. The wording is quite technical:

“any individual who works for another person, whether under a contract of service or apprenticeship or otherwise, but excluding anyone who provides services under a contract for services.”

What you can take away from that is that agency workers, genuine freelancers, and genuinely self-employed are all excluded from TUPE. However, the wording of “or otherwise” allows us some wiggle room. If you think that wiggle room might apply or can help others get their rights guaranteed, make sure you bring this up when you’re working with organisers and reps supporting you!

Economic, Technical, or Organisational (ETO) reasons

The three types of reasons your new employer can have to vary your terms and conditions are:

Economic

This is to do with the financial state of the business, for example, if the business cannot keep operating due to the costs of maintaining your role, then they are able to vary your terms and conditions and include dismissal/redundancy, within your normal employment rights.

Technical

This is the nature of the work that the business does. For example, if a manual labour role was computerised/mechanised, then TUPE would not protect you from required terms and conditions changes or redundancies due to this.

Organisational

This is the structure of the business - for example, where the new location of work is broadly inaccessible to you/other TUPE’d employees, then dismissal or redundancies can occur outside of TUPE.

However, these definitions aren’t set in stone as they aren’t defined within the regulations. This means that they can, and will, change as case law develops!

So, you’ve been or are being TUPE’d, now what?

We have lots of members who have been through TUPE’s before, and have reps with experience in dealing with TUPE.

Here is some anecdotal advice from them:

“In my experience of being TUPE’d and now having spoken to quite a few other people that have been TUPE’d.. It seems like a lot of TUPE’s are followed by redundancies further down the line. This could purely be coincidental, but it’s a pattern I’ve noticed since working with people going through TUPE”.

“TUPE’s can be quite awkward and unsettling. When my company got TUPE’d, there was definitely some awkwardness between us and the new staff. No one knew anyone else, it was a total surprise/no one knew the TUPE was happening.. So there was a bit of wariness between old and new staff.

I really recommend trying to build some trust and solidarity with the other staff as soon as possible.

When we joined the other company, it turned out the employees there were unionising. Us being TUPE’d into the company ended up massively helping their campaign, because everyone could see the writing on the wall that things in the business were changing. We all joined their union en masse and through doing that became very pally with the original staff there.

I’m glad we did that, because later down the line the company tried to force us all into the office - and because we were getting unionised we were able to push back collectively and it worked. I think if we’d not gotten friendly with the staff as soon as we did, we would have been forced back to the office successfully.

The other reason I’m glad we did this is because there was definitely some resentment amongst the old staff about us joining. They hadn’t got pay rises in ages etc etc and suddenly the company was bringing us all in. The staff there understood that it wasn’t our fault.. But I think a divide could have happened if we hadn’t become friends with the staff there.”

“UTAW put on training for my company when we were going through TUPE which was helpful”

“Get organised - TUPEs are often a precursor to further changes, but even when they’re not, they often end up bringing people together by accident. It is a golden opportunity to educate people, bring them into the union, and prepare for whatever comes next.”

As always…

The only power we have as workers is in standing together. If you’re going through a TUPE, become a UTAW member and learn how to organise. We do free training on this. Organising your colleagues will prepare you for potential battles ahead, including retaining your TUPE rights long into the future.

Sapphire Tech Workers Win Union Recognition in Just Six Months

In a stunning show of solidarity, the managed services team at Sapphire have won union recognition in just six months without even needing a ballot.

From the very beginning, workers built their campaign on conversations, trust, and a shared determination to change the way things were done at Sapphire. Within half a year, they had already secured an overwhelming majority of colleagues in support of UTAW union recognition there. The message to management is crystal clear: when workers stand together, recognition isn’t optional, it’s inevitable.

“Winning recognition this fast shows what’s possible when people stick together, through simply starting a conversation with a few colleagues about the challenges we faced, we found out these issues were team-wide” said one member involved in the campaign. “We are proof that in tech - just like anywhere else - when workers are united, we can win and have a voice in the workplace.”

Recognition is more than a legal milestone. It means Sapphire workers now have a formal voice at work, the ability to negotiate on pay and conditions, and the power to hold management accountable. For an industry often marked by precarious contracts, high turnover, and opaque decision-making, this win is a landmark step forward.

The victory also adds to a growing wave of organising across our sector, where workers are increasingly standing up for better pay, fair treatment, and ethical accountability in the industry.

For Sapphire workers, this is only the beginning. With recognition secured, these workers are now preparing for the next phase: negotiating a strong first pay deal and continuing to build their organisation.

Their success sends a clear message across the industry: organising works and tech workers are no exception.

We are proud to have supported Sapphire workers in their fight for union recognition. We look forward to more wins from them in the future!

If you’re reading this wondering how you can win a voice at work - become a UTAW member.

Read the original article at Sky News.

Strike by Digital Taxi Drivers on April 29–30: A Rebellious Step against Exploitation

By Ezra Otieno, PTWU

Between April 29 and April 30, 2025, virtual taxi drivers in Kenya organized a robust two-day strike that shut down activities on high-profile ride-hailing services like Uber, Bolt and Little Cab. Led by the Progressive Tech Workers Union (PTWU), the strike was a historic escalation in the battle for justice and fair treatment of workers in the gig economy.

Drivers across Nairobi shut down their apps, disabled their vehicles, and joined a synchronized call for greater pay, transparency, and rights in the law. The strike was something more than protest against discriminatory commissions and arbitrary deactivations it was a public declaration that digital workers are ready to fight.

The Build-Up: Piling Up Anger

For years now, Kenya’s ride-hailing drivers have labored under opaque terms. Though referred to as “partners” by apps, drivers face algorithm-controlled terms and have little say over prices, commissions, or the settlement of disputes. Companies like Uber and Bolt earn commissions of 25–30%, while drivers cover all the costs of operation fuel, maintenance, insurance, and loan fees.

It all came to a head in early April 2025 when several drivers were unexpectedly removed from the Bolt platform without notice or explanation and without a process to appeal the removal. Around the same time, new commission structures were implemented that continued to devastate drivers’ revenues. With living costs in orbit and fuel prices still as volatile as ever, frustration reached a breaking point.

PTWU, which has been mobilizing drivers primarily in Nairobi, moved swiftly to stage a strike. Organizers through WhatsApp groups, Telegram channels, and physical congregations demanded an unqualified digital shutdown from April 29.

The demand was straightforward:

• To limit commissions to 15%

• To reinstate unfairly suspended drivers

• Complete enforcement of NTSA regulations

• Legal status of drivers as employees, not contractors

• Drivers’ representation in all regulatory proceedings

By early morning on April 29, Nairobi’s central business district and its outskirts were unusually quiet. Thousands of drivers had logged off, and commuters were left stranded or faced exorbitant surge prices as the platforms scrambled to fill the vacuum.

Drivers met in locations like Lang’ata, Kasarani, and Umoja in makeshift meetings, trading experience and strategy. Some even made placards, on which were written messages like “We Are Not Robots” and “No Justice, No Rides.” Strategic locations like outside Bolt offices in Westlands saw small pickets held, clearly establishing that this was not going to be just a one-day protest.

Mainstream media picked up the story by mid-day. Local outlets interviewed frustrated passengers, but more importantly, they gave drivers a platform to speak out. Charles, a Nairobi-based Bolt driver and PTWU field organizer, told Citizen TV, “We are tired of being treated like disposable tools. If the platforms can’t respect us, we’ll shut them down.”

Although initially planned as a one-day protest, the sheer solidarity and quietness of the platforms led PTWU to extend the action to April 30. Things gained momentum, and the pressure mounted on ride-hailing companies.

By the second day, action had intensified within Nairobi. Drivers continued to protest peacefully, including outside Uber’s local office, demanding a conversation. Instead of listening, the authorities escalated.

Three PTWU-affiliated organizers two driver leaders and a union mobilizer were arrested in the afternoon near Waiyaki Way for allegedly “causing public disturbance.” Eyewitnesses said they were peacefully talking to other drivers and members of the media when the police arrived. PTWU denounced the arrests immediately as acts of intimidation and stifling of due worker protest.

Union lawyers worked through the night to secure their release, and on Labour Day morning itself, May 1, all three were granted police bond and released. In a media release issued soon after their release, PTWU declared:

“The arrests are a clear sign that the state and digital capital are in cahoots to silence workers. But we will not be silenced. The strike has taught us what is possible when workers organise together.”

Platform Reactions: Denial and Silence

Bolt initially asserted on Twitter that operations were “largely unaffected” — something ridiculed by users who shared screenshots of app unavailability and extortionate prices. Uber, on the other hand, said nothing but was said to be providing SMS inducements to bring drivers back online.

Neither platform addressed the root problems: exploitative charges, lack of recourse for deactivation, or outright lack of driver representation in company policy. Their silence only did more to reaffirm what most drivers already knew these platforms are more concerned with making a profit than with people.

Public Support and Political Implications

What surprised most was the amount of sympathy that existed in the public. Despite the inconveniences to commuters, the majority of Kenyans—especially young people who know the gig economy—were rallying around the strike. Both #DigitalStrike254 and #RespectDrivers trended on X (formerly Twitter) throughout both days.

Civic organizations, university campuses, and even boda boda organizations issued solidarity messages. The Kenya Human Rights Commission condemned the arrests and called on the government to assist in negotiating dialogue between platforms and drivers.

Several MPs, especially those from Nairobi, also weighed in, urging the Ministry of Labor and the NTSA to take action. As of May 2, PTWU had submitted a formal petition before both agencies outlining the drivers’ requirements and demanding changes in regulation.

A Turning Point for Gig Worker Organizing

The April 29–30 strike was more than a disruption. It was the coming of age of gig worker mobilization in Kenya. It was the first time digital taxi drivers demonstrated the ability to organize, display discipline, and stand firm even in the face of intimidation.

It also spoke to the relevance and demand for such unions as PTWU in the digital age. Unlike traditional unions, PTWU understands the temporary, app-based character of work today and is building a model of bottom-up organization that accounts for those realities.

Initiatives are now underway to:

• Create a national digital drivers’ council within PTWU

• Launch a cooperative transport app operated by drivers

• Organize a national gig economy conference in July

• Embark on a constitutional petition to protest the current designation of drivers as “independent contractors”

According to one driver at a May 2 debrief meeting: “The apps treat us like numbers, but this strike proved we are people organized, angry, and ready to take control.”

Conclusion: The Road Ahead

The April 29–30 strike was a landmark moment for Kenya’s gig workers. It highlighted the underlying brutalities of the ease of ride-hailing and demonstrated the huge potential of organizing among gig workers.

As the businesses try to return to normal, something fundamental has changed. Drivers are no longer solitary figures - they’re conversing, planning, and coordinating. And the message is clear and loud: the gig economy must be rebuilt to serve the people who power it.

The path ahead will not be without difficulties. But to the thousands who drove off, marched, and risked arrest this was merely the beginning.

A Note from UTAW

We commend the Progressive Tech Workers Union and their members for their incredible courage, determination, discipline and resilience. Long may it continue and we wish you success and solidarity in the next steps you take!

There is much to be learned from the Kenyan Taxi Driver’s strike and we thank Ezra for sharing this report with us. Support their fundraiser here.

As workers continue to face assaults on our dignity from multiple fronts, it is paramount we stick together and learn how to fight back. We build international links as a priority.

Introduction

Despite lockdowns proving that we can work as productively from home as we can from the office, employers are increasingly imposing return-to-office (RTO) mandates.

This has the consequences of undermining workplace inclusivity and equity by disproportionately worsening the lives of new parents, caregivers, and disabled workers.

It also threatens the benefits people have enjoyed from remote work, such as less time spent commuting, lower travel costs, eating freshly prepared food at home and having more time to spend with friends and family.

We believe that you should have the right to work where you want! Our union, UTAW, has played its part securing that right for workers like you in workplaces like yours. Read this guide and join other tech workers in UTAW so that you can have the final say

Impact on New Parents

New parents often face heightened challenges balancing professional responsibilities with childcare. Remote work has provided flexibility, allowing parents to manage both roles more effectively.

Mandating a return to the office can disrupt this balance, leading to increased stress and reduced job satisfaction.

Such mandates disproportionately affect working parents, undoing progress that has been made in workplace equity.

Impact on Caregivers

Caregivers, particularly those attending to dependant family members, rely on flexible work arrangements to fulfil their caregiving duties.

Therefore, adherence to a rigid RTO policy could force caregivers to choose between their job and their caregiving responsibilities, leading to difficult decisions and potential workforce attrition.

Impact on Disabled Workers

Remote work has opened up employment opportunities for disabled people by removing barriers (both physical and logistical) associated with traditional office environments.

Analysis from the Economic Innovation Group found that remote jobs saw the largest increase in the share of employees with disabilities, suggesting that remote work can lead to job opportunities across fields. Forcing a return to the office threatens to reverse these gains.

Your Individual Rights

When employers try to impose changes, such as forced RTO, the best way to permanently prevent them is through collective responses. However, there are ways to push back on an individual level:

The starting point is to find out what your terms and conditions of employment are. This is usually found in your employment contract, as that is the document that sets out the agreement between you and the employer about the operation of the employment relationship.

You should retain copies of all employment documentation. It does not matter too much whether you retain a hard copy or an electronic copy, but you should try to have a copy of the documents that you signed (whether physically or digitally).

Please note that most employment contracts often have a clause in them that states the contractual document is the only place that states the terms of the agreement, and that any previous versions/iterations of the contract are not relevant to the present agreement (This is sometimes called an ‘entire agreement’ clause).

If your terms have changed, you should check whether the changes are in line with the contract (some contracts will specify that all changes must be agreed in writing, others will allow the employer to vary its terms without consultation so long as the changes are reasonable).

Some employers will send you a new contract, with all the current terms of employment consolidated into one document. Others will simply send correspondence with confirmation of the changed clause with all other terms remaining unaffected. It is useful to know what approach your employer uses.

Your written terms will contain the usual things such as job title, salary, annual leave allowance and number of hours to be worked. Other things about what is expected from employees should also be included, such as things like:

• Probationary periods;

• Notice periods;

• Workplace location (i.e. where you will be working);

• Explanation of which terms are incorporated into the contract and which are not (cf. company handbook, bonus scheme etc.);

• Specifics on circumstances when and how the agreement can be changed (usually found under the heading ‘Variation’);

All of these matters are important, as they will affect how the employer deals with any proposed changes to your terms and conditions.

For example, an employer that is permitted to make unilateral changes to an employee’s terms merely needs to tell the employee what those changes are and it does not necessarily need to seek agreement – although there may be a particular format for the changes to take place (e.g. notification in writing at least 30 days before the proposed change).

In contrast, an employer that is required to seek the employee’s agreement should be seeking confirmation that the proposed contractual change is agreed. Often, what employers do is to dress up the agreed contractual change as the employee’s acknowledgement of a change to his/her terms and conditions.

It is therefore important for employees to know what their contractual rights are so that they can properly engage with their employer(s) on an individual level.

Alternative to the Contractual Route

If an employee is not happy with the employer’s rule in relation to their working location, it would normally be necessary for that clause to be changed by way of a contractual variation. As noted above, this is usually done by agreeing the change.

However, there are two options that are not linked to the contract. They are flexible working and reasonable adjustments.

Flexible Working

Under the Working Time Regulations, employees are permitted to ask for permission to work flexibly (known as a ‘flexible working request’). There is a lot of guidance available in this area – please have a look at the links section at the end of this guide as a starting point.

The perceived weaknesses of this type of request are:

• It is only possible to make a maximum of two requests in a 12-month period; and

• There is no right to working flexibly and the employer can refuse the application on a ‘business ground’, of which there are eight.

Reasonable Adjustments

Employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for any employee that may have protected characteristics, especially if you can do your job remotely and working remote/hybrid is an effective way of managing that (those) protected characteristic(s).

There is already guidance on how this ought to be pursued – please have a look at the links section at the end of this guide.

Which Route?

It is important to note that it can be difficult to get employers to agree flexible working. This is because there are 8 reasons for refusal that are baked into legislation (see s.80G ERA 1996).

Those reasons for refusal are:

1. the burden of additional costs,
2. detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand,
3. inability to re-organise work among existing staff,
4. inability to recruit additional staff,
5. detrimental impact on quality,
6. detrimental impact on performance,
7. insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work, and
8. planned structural changes

It is not necessary for the employer to provide a right to appeal this decision.

In contrast, it is more difficult for employers to refuse requests for reasonable adjustments, if the employee meets the relevant criteria. If the reasonable adjustment is for a disability, neurodivergence or chronic health issue, you may need to request or agree to an occupational health assessment. If you do, make sure to tell the clinician your needs as they will record it in the official occupational health report.

It is, though, important that employees carefully follow employers’ policies and procedures to pursue such requests. This will be the subject of a separate guide.

Overall

Whilst it is possible for individuals to oppose contractual changes on a personal level, without collective action, the employer has a stronger hand in imposing them.

The Collective Approach

The work we do supporting our members means we have first-hand experience of the negative impact of RTO mandates.

We believe that forcing employees to return to office against their will is an unfair work practice and often an excuse to monitor workers unnecessarily. Some people prefer office-based working, and that’s great. But others suffer tremendously.

We believe that employees should have the final say over when and where they work. Only this approach will ensure employees’ welfare.

So, what can you do?

If you are facing forced RTO, you are not alone and there are ways you can fight back. The good news is, there are lots of workers like you who have fought back and won…

Employees Win Against Forced Return-to-Office Mandates

Many companies have faced resistance from employees regarding RTO policies, leading to adjustments and more flexible arrangements:

• Apple: In 2022, Apple employees pushed back against the company’s RTO plans, advocating for more flexible work options. The resistance led to delays and modifications of the initial RTO mandate;

• Northcoders: In 2024, Northcoders employees wrote an open letter signed by a majority of workers. Sending this was enough to make senior leadership change their decision for forced return to office;

• Civilian Met Workers: In early 2025, desk based, civilian employees working for the Met workers were on strike over forced return to office.

How to …

If you’re facing RTO and want to fight back collectively, here are 3 steps you can take.

1. Power in numbers 👭

Acting collectively is the first step to fighting unfair RTOs. If you’re affected, speak to your colleagues and get organised. We offer training for members.

2. Join a union 💪

Unions are just people, like you, working together to enact meaningful changes to their lives;

By joining a union you are better protected against unfair work practices;

Join us here.

3. Plan your response 📝

There are different ways you can fight RTO. Whether that is through collective grievances, open letters, or even escalating to withholding your labour (strike action).

Every company and situation is different, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. By joining a union and making contact with a rep or organiser, at the same time as speaking to colleagues about how the RTO mandate affects them, you can start to plan your response.

We offer training and resources to help you. Become a member, join our Discord and reach out to one of our reps!

Further Reading and Resources

Variation of Contract

ACAS:

https://www.acas.org.uk/changes-to-employment-contracts

https://www.acas.org.uk/changing-an-employment-contract/advice-for-employees

https://www.acas.org.uk/changing-an-employment-contract/employer-responsibilities

https://www.acas.org.uk/changing-an-employment-contract/advice-for-employees/if-your-employer-introduces-a-contract-change-without-your-agreement

GOV.UK:

https://www.gov.uk/your-employment-contract-how-it-can-be-changed

Flexible Working

ACAS:

https://www.acas.org.uk/acas-code-of-practice-on-flexible-working-requests

GOV.UK:

https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working

Reasonable Adjustments

ACAS:

https://www.acas.org.uk/reasonable-adjustment

…or, how big is the carbon footprint of your AI endeavours?

The AI hype machine rumbles ever onward, engulfing the UK government and spawning a thousand experts along the way. But it’s not only good for contributing to the zombie-fication of the internet, AI is also quickly playing a starring role in climate breakdown too! There’s a growing movement flagging the significant environmental costs of developing, training, and running models, particularly the incredible resources required to maintain the data centres associated with the largest models.

The first step for most organisations or individuals concerned about the impact of their forays into AI is to understand how bad it currently is. Baselines then provide a benchmark for looking at how effective their strategies for reducing it are. With this in mind, we’ve rounded up some of the available carbon footprint calculators below, to help you take that first step.

Most calculators are based broadly speaking on the type of hardware you’re using, how long you’ll be using it for, and **where the compute power is located that you’ll be using. There are variations on this theme across all the different tools.

A quick note: the tools below all share a limitation that they are predominantly focused on the release of carbon dioxide into earths atmosphere. While this is a key greenhouse gas driving global warming, there are other emissions associated with global warming that are not included. The tools also don’t cover the water usage of data centers, another significant climate impact which will only be compounded as the climate warms further. More on the water usage of AI here

We also see a split in enterprise vs individual project level estimates: project-level estimates typically calculate the one off emissions of training a model, while enterprise tools allow ongoing monitoring of the impacts of using a model as well.

Enterprise solutions for cloud compute carbon impact

You might be surprised to know that the three major cloud service providers offer a variety of different tools to estimate the carbon emissions of customers

Microsoft Emissions Impact Dashboard for Azure

Designed not just for your machine learning models, this PowerBI app calculates the carbon footprint of your cloud-based computing in Azure.

It’s based on a Microsoft methodology validated by Standford in 2018 and includes emissions from Microsoft vendors and suppliers, as well as regional variations in fuel usage, “in line with ISOs”. Although this is Microsoft marking it’s own homework, and it only provides estimates, if you’re already using Azure, this tool should help you track and potentially reduce, the emissions associated with cloud usage.

Link: https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/power-bi/coi-sustainability.emissions_impact_dashboard

Google Cloud Carbon Footprint Dashboard

Similar to Microsoft, Google will provide you with a lovely visual dashboard for tracking how your IT cloud operations are contributing to climate breakdown. Perfect for management of multiple projects across an organisation!

The biggest surface difference between the two is that Google claims to adhere to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol for emissions reporting instead of an unknown ISO. The documentation for the methodology is also easily accessible online, vs the random PDF file from Microsoft.

Amazon Web Services Carbon Dashboard

Not to be outdone, Amazon claims to meet Greenhouse Gas Protocol AND ISO14064 with it’s carbon footprint estimates for Amazon Web Service customers. Notably however, it only includes on-site fossil fuels, and Amazon Web Service products electricity use in it’s calculations. Google, in contrast incorporates a third category (the terminology used in the documentation is “scopes”) which includes upstream emissions from data center equipment and buildings. So, while AWS might look like a lower carbon option, that’s probably not the full picture.

Essentially though, which of the above you use depends on the enterprise cloud provider your organisation has gone with. They each have their benefits and drawbacks but most of them will give you some kind of overview that can be used to make management decisions about project cloud resources and use. If they’re implmented before your company dives head first into the shallow end that is coporate AI adoption, you could also use them to demonstrate further what a bad idea that is climatically.

Individual Project Tools

Looking for tools at a different scale to the enterprise dashboards? There are a variety of different tools out there, mostly with some flavour of open license, that will integrate into your python project to provide tailored estimates

ML Co2 Impact

An open source (MIT license) project with a quick and easy website for calculating an estimate of carbon impact across cloud providers and hardwares - just select from the drop down options and hit the big red button. The data used to support all the calculations is on GitHub in case you’d like to interrogate it or add to it yourself, and the assumptions used to build the calculations are laid out clearly. There’s also a python package to install if you’d like to integrate carbon estimations in your own coding workflow (say, alongside PyTorch, for example).

Bonus points for incorporating a LateX template for the researchers looking to include calculations and providing some tips on how to reduce the carbon impact of machine learning. Downsides include difficulty in monitoring emissions over time and at a scale larger than individual projects or work.

Website: https://mlco2.github.io/impact/ GitHub: https://github.com/mlco2/impact

CarbonTracker

Another open source (MIT license) python package developed by students in Denmark, this tool will estimate the carbon emissions for training your machine learning model, and even gives you the option to end training cycles early if the carbon emission predictions are too high. It’ll automatically detect your location based on IP, then use that for part of the calculations of emissions.

CarbonTracker has been widely cited in academic papers (400+ times and counting) but as with codecarbon, it’s not clear how well it plays with enterprise perspectives and demands. This is understandable, since it was developed by PhD students, but it’s worth bearing in mind that you’ll need to do some aggregation and parsing if you want a nice dashboard for your manager to point at in a meeting. The documentation also isn’t great.

Website: https://carbontracker.info/ GitHub: https://github.com/lfwa/carbontracker

Want to get really nerdy about the tools mentioned above? “How to estimate carbon footprint when training deep learning models? A guide and review” (Bouza, Aurelie, & Lannelongue, 2023) is for you! It looks at seven different tools available in depth, so if the two mentioned above aren’t quite what you were looking for, this paper probably has one that’s a better fit. DOI: 10.1088/2515-7620/acf81b

Other options

For the non-technical folks out there, Deloitte has hopped on the AI bandwaggon with it’s very user friendly AI Carbon Footprint Calculator. Is there a rigorous methodology described? Don’t be silly, it’s a big 4 consulting firm! It uses the latest weights and metrics, they promise. What it does come with are some limited multiple choice options in an easy to read format and a rating out of 10 at the end. This writer couldn’t manage to get it give them a gold star as well, but you might have better luck. You also have the chance to enter their marketing funnel by downloading a personalised report with “recommendations”.

This is honestly, probably best for senior managers or people trying to convince senior managers that using live streamed cloud data to develop autonomous flying cars with natural language processing might be a bad idea.

So once you’ve identified the carbon impact of your project, organisation, or idea to do weather prediction with chatGPT, what to do next? We’ll cover this in a future article (Step 1: STOP PUTTING AI IN EVERYTHING), but in the meantime you can send your thoughts to contact@utaw.tech.

At UTAW, members are are organising and campaigning on issues ranging from tech complicity in genocide, employee surveillance and workplace discrimination, to climate breakdown. Join today and you too can get stuck into pushing for change across tech industry.

Revolution, against all the odds.

This year, I had the honour of visiting Cuba with the Cuba Solidarity Campaign’s Young Trade Unionist’s 2025 May Day Brigade as UTAW’s first ever delegate. I was alongside comrades from all across the trade union movement, with members from CWU, Unite, ASLEF, RMT, TSSA, POA - more acronyms than you can shake a stick at.

Our trip lasted two weeks, and in that time we heard and saw lots of different things about Cuba and how society is organised. There was a varying level of pre-existing knowledge amongst our brigade, some had deep specialist knowledge before coming, and some knew very little. I’d put myself in the latter camp, I knew relatively little about Cuba before my visit, and a lot of what I did know was through smashing articles and documentaries in the weeks leading up to the trip. One thing I noticed a lot was the Western propaganda spin on pretty much everything, spinning everything Cuba has done into a negative - stuff like “Cuba had one of the greatest and fastest literacy campaigns ever, and this is bad because…”, that’s not a direct quote from anything in particular, but the overall vibe I got whilst reading stuff. Over the past few years, in the face of Israel’s genocide, many people have got used to the lengths that our media will go to in the name of Western propaganda (think things like “young Gazans die” instead of “Palestinian children murdered”) but it’s still always jarring to identify and read such blatant ideological propaganda from our “trusted” media sources. For a small period of time, the Western media machine began to paint Cuba in a more positive light, as a result of Obama’s effort to warm relations with Cuba. Famously, the Kardashian’s had visited in 2016, televised in the episode ‘Havana Good Day’. Their visit was met with mixed reviews, and illustrations of Kim as Che (god bless the days before AI slop, where real artists made mashups of celebrity influencers and revolutionary commanders).

During our visit to Cuba, we learned how a state so boldly manages to organise their society in an alternative way to capitalism, despite having so few resources, being so physically close to the centre of the capitalist world, and the enduring blockade intended to bring about “hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government”. It’s very easy to have an ideologically romantic image of the revolution and the society it organised in place of the previous corruption and US interference, but the trip highlighted the importance of not just holding the ideology of Cuban society in a romantic, idealised capacity, but also recognising and understanding the damage caused by decades of the US’ illegal blockade. By recognising the damage caused by the US, and understanding how longstanding US policy chokes the possibility of Cuban prosperity, we become better comrades who can advocate for practical solidarity and change. It’s vital that all comrades who attend Cuba take what they learn home and share it, advocate for the Cuban people, and fight for better. Particularly those comrades visiting from the imperialist core where the greatest opportunity for meaningful change lies.

In 2025, Cuba are experiencing massive fuel shortages and enduring rolling blackouts. The camp we stayed at was experiencing a blackout both when we arrived, when we left, and at frequent points in between. In March 2024, protests began in response to food shortages and blackouts. The blackouts peaked in intensity in 2024, when Cuba suffered a national blackout from 18-22 October. The illegal blockade has increased in intensity since 2021 when Trump added Cuba to the arbitrary ‘State Sponsors of Terrorists’ list. Many people had hoped Biden would reverse this decision but he instead completely avoided the issue until his last few days in office, when he finally removed Cuba from the list, only for Trump to immediately return Cuba to the list when he returned to office.

Despite everything the Cubans endure, we experienced nothing but hospitality and kindness from everyone we met. We were met with total kindness and willingness to answer all of our questions about life in Cuba.

When we arrived at Camp, it was almost dusk, and there was a power cut - so we were thrown into the deep end. That being said, the staff and other delegations handled the cuts so well that often you couldn’t tell there even was a power cut. The dorms we stayed in were basic but had everything we needed. It’s all very communal, you share your rooms with seven other people, and you share the toilets and showers with your delegation. The toilet doors were very low, like a full head’s height lower than an average height person, so going to the toilet became a social experience. The toilets themselves didn’t flush and so you had to flush away your own waste with a bucket of water. All of this became second nature quite quickly and in all honesty, is preferable to the average British music festival. There were often frogs in the showers and toilets, they were pretty cute and I looked forward to seeing them. I actually kind of miss them now.

We were fed well, especially given the context of the US’ illegal blockade making it hard to import food, and fuel shortages making it harder to grow food. Lots of modern farm equipment runs on fuel, so a lack of fuel means moving back to older forms of farming, like manual tools, and using Oxen instead of vehicles to plough. All of this is slower, and leads to a lower yield, therefore making it harder to feed everyone. Despite this, we ate three solid meals, three times a day. We ate rice, meat, potatoes, and eggs largely. There was always tomatoes and cucumber available with lunch and dinner, and the tomatoes in Cuba had much more flavour than any of the tomatoes in the UK. The delegation had been briefed to bring condiments and seasoning for the food, and while having the condiments did add to the meals, there was no time that the additional condiments were absolutely necessary. And there were many meals I ate without using the condiments I’d brought (particularly when we’d had a long day and I didn’t want to walk back to my room and search through my bag.) My condiment of choice was Laoganma Crispy Chilli Oil - which makes everything taste better, especially rice (which you can expect to eat twice a day).

Throughout the trip we had a packed agenda that helped us to see many aspects of Cuban life, we visited primary care facilities (polyclinics) and listened to the importance of free healthcare to the Cuban approach to healthcare. For example, every town has a GP and every family has a family doctor. The polyclinics also have small wards and ICUs, they seemed to operate most comparably to a walk-in centre. As we toured the polyclinic though, we saw that the facilities were dated and resources were scarce. It’s no secret that particularly right now, Cuba is struggling with even the most basic of medical supplies. As an act of practical solidarity, the entire brigade brought medical supplies (painkillers, sterilisation equipment, contraception etc.) to be distributed to healthcare and community facilities. These gifts were appreciated but we were under no illusions that our gifts were a drop in the ocean compared to what the Cuban people need and deserve.

We also heard about the importance of healthcare in Cuba’s internationalism. For example, how they sponsor Palestinian students to attend the Latin American School of Medicine, and how they’ve sent brigades of Doctors to other countries, like to Italy during COVID when it became the centre of the pandemic. Healthcare is a huge point of pride for the Cuban people, and we saw that there’s a big focus on primary care and preventative approaches. For example, Cuban healthcare professionals take a community and primary care based approach to treating HIV.

Cuba also has the most progressive policies in Latin America for Trans and gender affirming healthcare which is fully provided by the state free of charge. A person must have lived in their ‘new’ gender for two years before they can access some types of gender affirming healthcare. Reform of the family code, and introducing incredibly progressive policies on LGBT+ issues like healthcare and marriage are a recent development in Cuba society. It wasn’t lost on me throughout the trip that this wasn’t always the case, and that during the early stages of the revolution - gays weren’t treated well, often being placed in labour camps and being labelled as counter-revolutionaries. In his later years, Castro acknowledged this as a mistake and took the blame.

The centrepiece of the trip was undoubtedly the May Day parade, an annual parade of workers through the heart of Plaza de la Revolución in Havana in celebration of International Workers’ Day. Hundreds of thousands of workers march along the street in support and celebration of the revolution. Traditionally, Fidel would’ve attended. Raúl and Miguel Díaz-Canel now typically attend. I’d never seen such a large march in my life before, and definitely not to celebrate something.

On farms, we saw the impacts of reduced access to fertiliser, tractors, and other important farm equipment, because of the blockade. In response to this, Cuba has adopted largely organic and manual farming techniques, largely through necessity - but also because Cuba understands its place in the environment and considers their existence in relation to the environment. There’s a conscious effort to farm in an ecological way. Cuba is acutely aware that as an island in the Caribbean, the impacts of the ongoing climate crisis will not be kind to them.

Our visit to Cuba was nothing short of life-changing. It challenged everything we thought we knew about Cuba, and about the world by extension. It showed us that it is indeed possible to fight back, even in the most challenging conditions, and that it’s possible to win. Each one of us must continue to fight for a Cuba free from the pressures of imperialism, we must fight to end the illegal blockade. We must defend the right of a state to exist freely and without US influence.

UTAW Members at Cambridge Apple Store ask for union recognition

Grand Arcade joins a growing number of Apple Retail Stores globally that are organising, including White City and Southampton, where workers have also requested voluntary recognition through UTAW and faced considerable pushback and union-busting from management.

Apple’s response has followed a familiar and predictable pattern seen internationally. Managers have conducted one-on-one meetings with staff to interrogate them about union involvement, while offering extra hours as an incentive. All-hands “captive audience” meetings have been held to spread misinformation about unions, and a small number of anti-union workers are encouraged to speak out regularly.

Apple attempts to portray UTAW as a meddling external organisation disrupting the so-called “family” dynamic between employees. They frame unions as “businesses” trying to exploit Apple’s workforce for profit. A union could lead to losing out on pay or benefits. A union might negotiate you a worse deal. A union might lead to you receiving pay increases and benefits later than other employees. A union can’t actually affect all the things they want to change.

In 2022, Apple hired the notorious “union-avoidance” firm Littler Mendelson in the US — a law firm previously involved in union-busting at Starbucks and McDonald’s. The Verge reported on this move, which signalled how seriously Apple was preparing to resist worker organising. In 2024, the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) awarded a settlement to Apple retail workers represented by our sister union, the Communication Workers of America, after a manager unlawfully interrogated a worker about union support. Reuters covered the ruling. The behaviours ruled on by the NLRB represent more than a passing resemblance to the playbook Apple have deployed in the UK.

Apple’s day-to-day union-busting tactics in the UK aim to slow things to a crawl — delaying meetings with union reps, creating the illusion that nothing is happening. Phrases like “do your own research” are used to sow doubt and delay decisions, echoing the rhetoric of conspiracy theorists, pseudoscience promoters including the followers of the far-right QAnon conspiracy. Apple also flaunts its “Solicitation and Distribution” policy to discourage workers from talking about the union or distributing materials at work. While legally they cannot enforce this against protected union activity, the implication alone is intended as a threat to deter activists.

For all the effort Apple has put in to union-busting, it continues to refuse to engage with the real issues workers want to raise. Retail staff routinely face disciplinary action for disability-related absence, often caused by the company’s failure to implement reasonable adjustments. Managers are poorly trained, leading to unfair disciplinary procedures and harsh sanctions. Apple use an employee forum called the ERT as a sham union proxy to consult and inform workers on changes to roles without providing those reps with an agenda prior to meetings or the opportunity to raise concerns. And chiefly amongst all these issues, Apple doesn’t recognise the huge contribution that individual retail workers add, who receive bog-standard retail wages in exchange for individually contributing hundreds of thousands of pounds each in revenue every year.

All of this amounts to a hostile, toxic work culture for workers, emblematic of the issues that workers want to resolve in the first place. All of this is abundantly obvious to workers at Apple Grand Arcade who have prepared to face these tactics. They routinely identify and share the actions that Apple is taking. Blatant union-busting like this wont work. If anything it strengthens the resolve of our members and only further demonstrates the need for a real worker voice in the form of a worker-led trade union. That’s what we’re building at Apple, and we won’t back down.

– The reps at Apple, Cambridge

How to Defend Against a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

What is a PIP?

A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) is a formal process that employers use to address performance concerns. The employer ought to have guidance on what a PIP is and in what circumstances it would seek to impose one. This can sometimes be found in the employee’s employment contract. Other places you might find this are in the Company Handbook, Employees’ Handbook or the employer’s Intranet/HR portal.

PIPs have a number of stages, which are usually (but not always) arranged as follows:

1. Informal PIP
2. Formal PIP – stage 1
3. Formal PIP – stage 2

Failing a PIP can result in disciplinary action, which may result in dismissal, but the employer ought to follow a fair process. It is not usually possible to bring a claim for ‘ordinary’ unfair dismissal (in this context, that means for performance-related issues) if an employee has less than two years’ service. Although this might change with the Employment Relations Act due to come out next year (2026).

When are PIPs are used?

PIPs are one of the tools used by employers to seek to improve performance, especially if the employer has an issue with an individual’s work. Whilst a PIP can provide an opportunity to improve, it can also serve as a step toward dismissal.

If your employer opens a discussion about a PIP, it is crucial to approach the process strategically. This guide outlines key steps to protect yourself and improve your chances of a fair (and hopefully successful) outcome.

What to do: Action Plan

The first step when receiving notice of a PIP is to check your employer’s policy. There are many different possible names for this policy, but their effect is the same.

Note: Policies related to performance can vary and could be called ‘Performance Improvement Policy’, ‘Performance Management Policy,’ ‘Employee Performance Review Policy’ or ‘Performance Appraisal Policy’.

The first thing to do is find out what are the conditions an employee must meet to qualify for a PIP. This is usually a shortcoming related to the employee’s performance of his/her/their primary responsibilities.

There is usually a section in the policy devoted to informally resolving the issue, sometimes called an informal PIP. If this is the case, then this step should be followed before starting any formal process. Sometimes, employers will seek to initiate PIPs prior to trying informal resolutions, or against their policies’ criteria for who is eligible for a PIP. If you believe you have been put on a formal PIP contrary to your employer’s policy, the first thing you must do is point this out, making direct reference to the relevant section of their policy.

As with anything regarding your employer, ensure you get everything in writing.

If you are eligible for being put on a PIP, follow the steps below.

1. Assess the PIP’s Validity

PIP terms are usually subject to agreement, so it is very important that employees – before agreeing to the PIP – carefully review the basis for it and how it is structured. Use SMART Criteria to help set the targets.

Check for the following:

Are the actions and targets reasonable? The objectives should be:

• Specific, with no room for misinterpretation of the target.
• Measurable, with a pre-agreed quantity or number to reach.
• Achievable, especially within the timeframe provided.
• Realistic, an average colleague should also expect to meet the target.
• Time-bound, there must be a specific window of time in which you should reach the target.

Is the process fair and non-discriminatory?

• Check that similar performance issues have been addressed consistently among colleagues.
• If you suspect discrimination (e.g., based on age, race, gender, disability, or another protected characteristic), seek advice from your union representative.

Is there a sound basis for the PIP?

• The PIP should be based on clear, documented performance concerns - not vague, non-specific or subjective criticisms.
• If past performance reviews were positive, challenge any sudden change in assessment, especially if the issues have never been raised until the PIP proposal.

2. Your Right to Representation

If the PIP could lead to dismissal, you have the right to be accompanied at meetings. This can be a union representative or a colleague.

• If you’re unsure whether dismissal is a possible outcome, ask for clarification in writing.

Note: If you have been with the company for less than two years, you have fewer protections against unfair dismissal. However, discrimination claims or breach of contract claims can still apply.

3. Proactively Manage the PIP

Once the PIP is set, focus on documenting your progress and gathering evidence to support your case.

Key Steps:

Engage with the process actively

• Show commitment to improvement by following the PIP’s steps and meeting deadlines.
• If any target is unclear or unrealistic, request clarification or adjustments in writing.

Request regular feedback (even excessively!)

• Proactively ask stakeholders (managers, colleagues, or clients) for feedback in writing.
• Gather positive feedback that confirms your improvement and achievements.

Identify and prepare for weak areas

• Before the review meeting, pinpoint incidents where you may have fallen short.
• Ask colleagues/stakeholders for their perspective and prepare a defense.

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Can you show measurable improvements since the issue was raised?
• Were the concerns one-time issues (“blips”) rather than ongoing failures?
• Even if you haven’t met every target, are you showing progress?
• Do you have evidence of progress (emails, reports, feedback)?

4. Preparing for the Review Meeting

• Document everything: Keep a record of actions you have taken, feedback received, and any challenges encountered.
• Challenge unfair points: If targets were unreasonable or the process was unfair, raise these concerns.
• Be professional and constructive: Demonstrating a positive attitude toward improvement strengthens your position.

5. Get Support

You are not alone.

If you believe the PIP is unfair or being used to push you out, seek support early.

• Speak to your union representative for advice and advocacy.
• Consult external resources for further guidance on performance issues and employment rights.

Useful resource: Redmans Solicitors: Guide to Performance Issues at Work

By taking a strategic approach, actively engaging with the process, and gathering supporting evidence, you can defend yourself against an unfair PIP and improve your chances of a favourable outcome.

A Final Word

We at UTAW have been seeing PIPs used more and more frequently as a means of managing people out.

The best defense is always collective. This is why it is so important for us all to be building strong workplace unions. Alone, we have very little power. But together, with union recognition contracts, we are much better able to defend ourselves.

If you want to learn how to organise your workplace and win union recognition, become a member.

Flexible Working Request (FWR) - Outline

• It is a day one right and applies to all employees;
• Permissible changes are hours, times and location of work; So for example, you might request working from home an extra day or a later start time and finish time.
• The request can be made for any reason;
• The employer can legally refuse for any of the eight specified business-related reasons listed below
• There must be consultation with the employee and requests should be handled reasonably; and
• The whole process must be concluded within two months (unless an extension is agreed), and this should include the appeal, if one is permitted by the employer.

What Flexible Working Changes Can I Request?

You can ask for a permanent change in terms and conditions (a “contract variation”) relating to:

• The hours you are required to work;
• The times you are required to work; and/or
• Where you are required to work.

How do I make a FWR?

Your application must be:

• Be in writing;
• Be dated;
• State that it is an application under the statutory right to request flexible working;
• Specify what change is being applied for, the proposed date of the change;
• State whether the employee has made a previous request; and, if so,
• When that previous application was.

You can find a helpful template here.

Can My Employer Refuse?

An employer can only refuse an application for flexible working where there is a business reason for doing so.

The permitted business reasons under the legislation are:

1. the burden of additional costs
2. detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand
3. inability to re-organise work among existing staff
4. inability to recruit additional staff
5. detrimental impact on quality
6. detrimental impact on performance
7. insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work
8. planned structural changes.

The employer should not simply assert that a statutory ground for refusal exists but should provide an adequate explanation to the employee of which ground applies and why it has led to the application being refused.

The Purpose of FWRs and the Process an Employer Should Take

One of the main purposes of the flexible working provisions is to ensure that employers give serious consideration to employees’ flexible working requests. There is no requirement to follow any particular procedure but requests must be dealt within a “reasonable manner”. There is no statutory definition of what “reasonable manner” means, but both the ACAS Code of Practice and the ACAS guide make recommendations. An Employment Tribunal (ET) will have regard to the ACAS Code of Practice in determining whether an employer has behaved reasonably. As noted above, the employer is required to consult with the employee about a request before it is rejected. This is normally in the form of a meeting.

Although there is no statutory obligation to meet with an employee in all cases, we believe the employer should hold a meeting unless the request can simply be approved without discussion. If the employer cannot accept the request, the ACAS Code says there should be a discussion of whether a modified version of the request or alternative options might work instead. Employers are expected to propose compromises where possible rather than simply rejecting a request outright.

Trial periods and Competing Requests

If your employer is unsure whether a flexible working request will work, one available option is to agree to a change on a trial basis. This is usually an agreed fixed period of time during which the new arrangements are in place. In such cases, the usual two-month decision deadline ought to be formally extended so that the trial period can be accommodated.

It is important to be clear that the trial period has a fixed end date, and that the employee will revert to their original working pattern if the trial is not successful. If this is not stated there is a risk that a permanent contractual change will be deemed to have taken place. It is also important to set agreed dates for reviewing the new arrangements, along with clear criteria for assessing whether the trial has been a success.

As always, make sure you get everything in writing and save it somewhere safe, off of your companies systems and devices.

Complaints to the Employment Tribunal (ET)

There are specified circumstances when an employee can lodge a claim with the Employment Tribunal:

• When the employer has failed to deal with the flexible working application in a ‘reasonable manner’;
• When the employer has ‘failed to consult with the employee’ before rejecting the request;
• When the employer has ‘failed to notify the employee of the decision on the application within two months (or any agreed extended period);
• When the employer has refused the application for a reason other than the statutory grounds;
• When the employer’s decision to reject the application is based on incorrect facts; and
• When the employer has inappropriately treated the application as withdrawn.

Role of the Tribunal

The ET’s function is to verify whether the employer has acted in a reasonable manner and consulted with the employee, and to examine any disputed facts as to why the business reasons for refusal apply. There is no power for the Tribunal to question the employer’s commercial judgment or to substitute its own judgment for that of the employer. Unless the employee can persuade the ET that the employer’s decision was based on facts that are “incorrect”, it is difficult to go behind the employer’s business case. There is certainly no requirement on the employer to justify its decision on objective Grounds.

A Successful Claim

Where the ET finds a complaint well-founded, it will make a declaration to that effect and has the power to make an order that:

• Requires the employer to reconsider the employee’s application for flexible working; and/or
• Awards compensation of up to eight weeks’ pay, subject to the upper limit on the amount of a week’s pay.

Due to the fact that limited compensation is available for breaches of the flexible working provisions, it is likely that claims will be brought as part of wider claims for discrimination.

Contrasting Flexible Working and Reasonable Adjustments

There is sometimes confusion between flexible working requests and reasonable adjustments. It is important you don’t get the two confused, and that you follow the course of action that best suits you and your own circumstances. If you’re in doubt, you can reach out to one of our reps for guidance. A flexible working request, when permitted, will usually result in a permanent change in your terms of employment.

In contrast, a request for a reasonable adjustment is linked to a disability and involves seeking a change to remove a disadvantage caused by that disability but does not change your contractual terms. A reasonable adjustment is in response to fixing that disadvantage (and may well change a person’s location, days or times of work). This is NOT the same as flexible working though, and if you’re making a reasonable adjustment request - do NOT mention flexible working in it as you risk the employer rejecting your request based on business reasons.

Generally speaking, it is easier for an employer to reject a request for Flexible Working (due to business needs which are sometimes hard to prove or disprove). Whereas, if an employer rejects a Reasonable Adjustment this could amount to disability discrimination.

Indirect Discrimination

A significant risk for employers is indirect discrimination when refusing flexible working requests. This is because such applications are usually made by employees with caring responsibilities. Given that this is an issue that disproportionately affects women - especially those returning from maternity leave - this can lead to claims of indirect sex discrimination.

Indirect discrimination occurs when the employer imposes a condition that despite not being intended to treat anyone less favorably, has the practical effect of disadvantaging someone with a particular protected characteristic. When the act or decision does disadvantage an employee with that characteristic, it will amount to indirect discrimination (unless it can be objectively justified).

The required elements for a finding of unlawful indirect discrimination are:

• The application of a provision, criterion or practice (PCP - the condition imposed by an employer which results in less favourable treatment is known as a “PCP”);
• That PCP must disproportionately disadvantage a group of people who share a protected characteristic;
• The PCP does in fact put someone personally at a disadvantage; and
• There is no objective justification for the PCP.

In practice, most female employees who wish to work flexibly in order to care for children have no difficulty getting over the first three of these hurdles and cases often turn on the question of whether the employer’s insistence on full-time working is objectively justified.

Sex discrimination may also form the basis of a claim for women who have caring responsibilities for adults. Relevant statistics show that this is also a burden which disproportionately falls on women. An employer will be in a position to refuse a request from a female employee who wishes to work flexibly if it can objectively justify its practice of requiring full-time working. There have been numerous cases involving women with young children in which employers have sought to justify such a refusal with inconsistent and unpredictable results.

Employers are much more likely to be able to justify the refusal if they have consulted fully with the employee before rejecting the request with a “can do” rather than “cannot do” approach. The employer ought to try to find ways around its concerns before rejecting a request. A blanket policy to refuse flexible working would usually be considered to be unlawfully discriminatory.

Some jobs can be done flexibly merely by reducing hours. Other jobs may require full-time commitment but be capable of job-sharing. One possible justification for refusing a request to work part-time would be an inability to locate a suitable job-share partner.

Following a change to the Equality Act in January 2024, a male employee wanting to work flexibly for caring reasons may also now be able to claim indirect sex discrimination, if he can show that female employees are disadvantaged and he suffers the same disadvantage.

Nothing says “I work with computers” like the UTAW Terminal T-Shirt. A white t-shirt with red print of a little drawing of a computer on the front, and the UTAW logo on the back, for the most discerning of computer-using cuties.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. Screenprinted by EHC Screenprinting on T-Shirts from No Sweat. No Sweat T-shirts are made by Oporajeo – a workers’ initiative in Bangladesh set up by survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster. Oporajeo workers earn a living wage, in decent conditions and have democratic control of their work. Oporajeo is a carbon neutral factory that offsets emissions with their own tree planting project. No Sweat T-shirts are made from GOTS certified organic cotton, using azo-free dye and a ETP water filtration system.Solidarity: Profits from the T-shirts are used to fund No Sweat campaigns and put into a Garment Worker Solidarity Fund to support independent trade unions around the world organising in the garment industry.

100% Organic Cotton - fully traceable certified Global Organic Textile Standard and Oeko-Tex Standard 100

Sizing: XS — chest: 44cm, length: 66cm S — chest: 48cm, length: 70cm M — chest: 52cm, length: 73cm L — 56cm, length: 76cm XL — 60cm, length: 78cm 2XL — 66cm, length: 80cm 3XL — 68cm, length: 81cm

A variety pack of UTAW stickers, newly refreshed for 2026.

Choose from a Booster Pack of 10 randomly assorted stickers, guaranteed 1 shiny, perfect for personal use or trade with your friends; or the Jumbo Pack of 50, great for mass distribution where you work, or attaching to the devices and appliances of production.

If you happen to see one in the wild, on a lamp post or toilet cubicle in your neighbourhood, please send a pic.

Red sporty socks, one size fits all, with the words “Union Worker” proudly declared around the rim of the hole where your feet go in.

The classic UTAW colours, or Palestine, Pride Progress & Trans Pride flags, on hard enamelled metal badges.

A black t-shirt featuring Meatballt the cat, and the UTAW logo on the back, certifying the wearer as Comrade Bestie.

Design, printing, manufacturing, materials and labour: Graphic designed by the UTAW #merch working group. Screen printing by I Dress Myself, using 100% solvent free, water-based, eco-friendly, GOTS organic inks, printed in Somerset. T-Shirts are supplied by Sanley/Stella. Single Jersey, 100% Cotton - Organic Combed Ring Spun, 180 GSM. Fabric washed. Weaving, dyeing and assembly in Bangladesh. Stanley/Stella is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation which works with trade unions, NGOs, governments and factories to ensure a better standard of working conditions and wages for workers.

Sizing: XS — chest: 47.5cm, length: 65cm S — chest: 49.5cm, length: 69cm M — chest: 53.5cm, length: 73cm L — chest: 56.5cm, length: 75cm XL — chest: 59.5cm, length: 77cm XXL — chest: 63.5cm, length: 79cm 3XL — chest: 67.5cm, length: 81cm

Black sweatshirt with UTAW ASCII-art on the front.

Size up one size compared to our t-shirts.

Screenprinted by EHC Screenprinting on AWDis sweatshirts.

Measurements: ½ Chest / Body Length / Sleeve Length (cm): S: 52/68/65, M: 56/71/65.5, L: 60/74/68, XL: 64/77/69.5, 2XL: 68/80/71

80% Ringspun Cotton / 20% Polyester. 280 GSM.

Care Instructions: Do not bleach, Do not dry clean, Iron cool, Tumble dry low heat, Wash Cold.

Introduction

This guide contains redundancy advice for tech workers, by tech workers.

To our best knowledge, the information that follows is correct, but we are not lawyers so can’t guarantee it. If taking action against your employer, it’s worth cross-checking this guide against other sources and, if possible, seeking your own legal advice.

This guide doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Much of this information is sourced from external resources linked in the final section. By collating it and adding further advice from a union perspective, we hope it will make your life easier.

We’ve written this with a UK-based audience in mind. If based elsewhere, check the laws in your area.

If you’re a union member, you can get support from trained reps. If you’re a UTAW member, you can also seek advice from UnionLine, the CWU’s employment law firm: https://www.cwu.org/unionline/

Redundancy is difficult and often stressful, but you are far from alone. Lean on your colleagues and your union for support. Take care not to burn yourself out during consultations or while looking for new work. Be kind to yourself, and take a breather when you need it.

Joining UTAW takes two minutes: utaw.tech/join

Runbook

If made redundant, you could lose access to work systems at very short notice. If you suspect you could soon face redundancy or your employer notifies you that redundancies are incoming, it’s worth taking steps to prepare.

Steps could include:

• Downloading all of your payslips.

• Checking your email and address on all work systems is correct.

• Ensuring you submit any work expenses, and that any outstanding expenses have been reimbursed.

• Downloading copies of any performance review feedback you have.

• Taking notes on any projects you have worked on and the contributions you made to them (this will be useful for future interviews and CV writing).

• Get your CV in order.

Transfer copies of any important documentation stored on work systems to yourself, but take care not to keep anything sensitive (e.g. code). Organisations will often have safeguards in place to detect unauthorised transfers of data. Consequences could include forfeit of redundancy pay and immediate dismissal without notice. Don’t give yourself an unnecessary headache.

If you have been provisionally selected for redundancy, it may be worth:

• Connecting with your colleagues on LinkedIn or exchanging another form of contact details.

• Confirming who you can approach for a reference and taking note of their contact details (both phone number and work email, where possible).

After you have been dismissed:

• Join any alumni Slack/Discord/LinkedIn groups that exist, if interested.

• Check your eligibility for Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance.

• You may be eligible for Jobseeker’s Allowance even if you have a working partner or have significant savings.

• Don’t assume you won’t qualify.

• If you are eligible for government benefits, claim them. That’s what it’s there for.

• Check your eligibility for Jobseeker’s Allowance here

• Assess your budget, check whether you have outgoings you can temporarily remove or reduce, and ensure you know how long you can live before you need another role lined up.

This section of the guide was inspired by:

• Layoff Runbook
• Effective Immediately

Selection

What criteria can management use to select who is made redundant?

If a whole team or specific group of staff is being made redundant, your employer will have a list of roles they want to cut. No further criteria are necessary.

Otherwise, if your employer is looking to reduce the number of workers in an organisation or team, they need to draw up a list of roles to be considered for redundancy and define some criteria for selection. Selection criteria should be as ‘objective’ and ‘measurable’ as possible. It should not be affected by personal opinion but based on measurable facts.

All at-risk workers will typically be scored against the criteria. Each criterion can be weighted differently depending on what your employer wants to prioritise (for example, some may be scored out of 15, others out of 5). Criteria must be applied consistently for all workers in your selection pool.

Some typical criteria employers can use:

• skills, qualifications, and experience
• performance ratings
• attendance
• disciplinary record
• length of service

Unfair criteria include:

• pregnancy
• family, including parental leave and time off for dependants
• contract status (e.g. being part-time or fixed-term)
• acting as an employee representative
• acting as a trade union representative
• trade union membership status
• trade union activity (e.g. going on legal industrial action for 12 weeks or less)
• doing jury service
• being involved in whistleblowing
• age
• disability
• gender or gender reassignment
• race
• religion or belief
• sexual orientation

If you are dismissed using unfair criteria, an employment tribunal can rule your dismissal as unlawful, regardless of your employment status and length of service. You will need to make a claim to an employment tribunal within 3 months of the date your employment ends (so, the final day of your notice period, if you have one).

Ensure that no unfair criteria are indirectly applied. Some examples:

• length of service (“last in, first out”) can be considered, but if it’s the only means of selection used, it could be seen as age or gender discrimination.
• attendance can be considered, but if leave due to disability, pregnancy, or parental leave is included in this, it likely amounts to discrimination.

What is a selection pool?

Your employer may set up one or multiple selection pools. Each pool should include roles that are the same or similar.

Each pool should have clear selection criteria set out by management, and all workers in that pool should be scored in the same way. The criteria used across each pool can vary.

How many workers can my employer make redundant?

There is no limit on how many workers your employer can make redundant at once, but they must follow different rules depending on the number.

If making 19 or fewer redundancies within any 90-day period, your employer must hold individual consultations.

If making 20 or more redundancies in a single establishment (not necessarily the whole organisation, which could be much larger) within any 90-day period, your employer must hold both collective and individual consultations.

What is an establishment?

If 20 or more redundancies are made in a single “establishment” within an organisation over a 90-day period, collective consultations must be held. However, this term is vague and open to interpretation.

An establishment could be an entire organisation or a ‘distinct entity’ within an organisation. An entity could be argued as a ‘single establishment’ if it:

• manages its own workforce
• is reasonably permanent and stable
• can independently carry out the tasks assigned to it
• has its own technical means, equipment, and organisational structure

A typical example is a retail chain closing several of its physical stores. It could lay off hundreds of workers in total, but if each store operates as a distinct entity from the wider business and has fewer than 20 affected workers, it may not need to hold collective consultation.

The definition of “establishment” employers use is a common point of contention. They may seek to define it very narrowly to avoid their contractual obligations. If you believe your employer is taking advantage in this way, you should seek legal advice (if you’re in UTAW, reach out to UnionLine).

Does my employer need to offer voluntary redundancy as an option?

No, voluntary redundancy is offered at the discretion of the employer. If they have not offered it, but you believe they should, you can discuss this with management during consultations.

I am not provisionally selected. Am I safe?

If you have not been provisionally selected, but have been notified as at-risk, you are not safe from redundancy until dismissals are made and any appeal cases are resolved.

If another colleague in your selection pool is provisionally selected, but successfully argues their case during individual consultation or on appeal and raises their score against the criteria, you may be provisionally selected instead.

If you are provisionally selected later on, you should be individually consulted in the same way as your other affected colleagues. The time between your provisional selection and any notice of dismissal should not be any shorter than your other affected colleagues.

Is my employer allowed to stagger redundancies to escape collective consultation?

No. Staggered redundancies are allowed in general, but your employer should not make multiple, smaller groups of workers redundant over an extended period solely to avoid collective consultation. If they do, affected workers can bring a case to an employment tribunal and may be awarded compensation. Bear in mind that it may be a challenge to prove your employers’ intentions to a tribunal. We recommend you seek legal advice (if you’re in UTAW, reach out to UnionLine).

Timeline

How quickly can my employer dismiss me?

If making 19 or fewer redundancies in an establishment, there is no legal minimum time between the start of consultations and dismissal. However, your employer must follow a fair and “reasonable” process. If they fail to do this, you may be able to bring a case to an employment tribunal. Good practice would be to provide the same amount of time for consultation as if they were making 20-99 redundancies, so at least 30 days between the start of consultations and dismissal.

If making between 20 and 99 redundancies in an establishment, no workers can be dismissed any sooner than 30 days following the start of consultations.

If making 100 or more redundancies in an establishment in Britain, no workers can be dismissed any sooner than 45 days following the start of consultations.

If making 100 or more redundancies in an establishment in Northern Ireland, no workers can be dismissed any sooner than 90 days following the start of consultations.

Once your dismissal is confirmed, you will then need to serve your notice period. Your employer could let you go sooner by offering payment in lieu of notice, or could place you on gardening leave for the remainder of your notice.

How much notice of dismissal must my employer give me?

Employment contracts often state how much notice you will receive in the case of dismissal, so check that as your first port of call. The information that follows is the statutory minimum.

If employed for more than 1 year, you are entitled to 1 week’s notice for each full year of employment. For instance, if you have been employed for 3 years, you must receive at least 3 weeks of notice. The cap is 12 weeks.

If employed for between 1 month and 1 year, you are entitled to 1 week’s notice.

If employed for under 1 month, you are not entitled to any notice.

Rather than making you serve the remainder of your notice, your employer may opt to make a payment in lieu of notice instead.

My workplace has just completed a round of redundancies. How long before they can begin another round?

There is no limit on how long your employer must wait before carrying out a fresh round of redundancies. However, attempting further redundancies within 90 days of previous ones may trigger further obligations for your employer to consult with affected workers.

If your employer carries out a first batch of redundancies affecting fewer than 20 workers in an establishment, and subsequently proposes a second batch of redundancies within 90 days, collective consultation will be triggered wherever the total number of affected workers is 20 or more. Failure to collectively consult on all redundancies proposed within the 90 day period is illegal.

If your employer carries out a first batch of redundancies and collectively consults on their proposals, and subsequently proposes a second batch of redundancies within 90 days, they are not required to add the total from the second batch of redundancies to the first batch. For instance, if 30 workers are laid off in the first batch and 10 workers in the second batch, there is no requirement for collective consultation on the second batch (unless the employment contracts of affected workers state otherwise). If the collective consultation on the first batch is still underway, however, both batches should be merged and the consultation should be completed on all 40 proposed redundancies.

Consultation

What is collective consultation?

Collective consultation must happen when an employer:

• plans 20 or more redundancies in your establishment (“establishment” is not necessarily the organisation as a whole, which may be much larger).
• plans to make the redundancies within 90 days.

In collective consultation, management consults with representatives of affected workers in regular meetings. In a workplace with a recognition agreement, these will be trade union reps; otherwise, they will be employee reps.

Collective consultation must cover:

• the reasoning for redundancies
• ways to avoid redundancies
• ways to keep the number of redundancies to a minimum
• ways to limit the effects for affected workers (e.g. by offering retraining)

What is individual consultation?

Some form of individual consultation must happen in all circumstances, though there are no strict rules around what this process should look like.

Individual consultation is an opportunity for provisionally selected workers to meet with management before any final decisions are made. You should discuss:

• why management views redundancy as necessary
• the criteria management has used to select you and others
• any concerns you have about the process or your selection
• the possibility of time off, if you want any, allowing you to update your CV and search for new work
• ideas you have for alternatives that could avoid redundancy, for you or others

Management does not need to agree to any ideas you suggest but should meaningfully consider them.

There are no rules around how long consultation should last, but if 20 or more redundancies are made at once, there is a minimum time between consultations starting and dismissal (see ‘Timeline’ above). Even in the case of 19 or fewer redundancies, an exceptionally short consultation period could be seen by an employment tribunal as grounds for unfair dismissal.

Management should meet with you individually at least once during the consultation period.

You don’t have a legal right to be accompanied to meetings by a union rep or colleague, but it’s good practice and should be allowed. Ensure you give management notice that you will be accompanied and add them to any calendar invites. It is a good idea to have someone in the room who can observe the discussion and take minutes for you to review later.

If management is resistant to you bringing someone, emphasise how stressful you find the situation and that you will be reassured by having support in the meeting (tug at their heartstrings, in other words). Make clear that it is standard practice to allow a colleague or rep to attend and that denying such a request is unusual.

What is the difference between collective and individual consultation?

In collective consultation, management consults representatives of affected workers (either trade union or employee reps). In individual consultation, management consults affected workers one-to-one.

Collective consultations allow the collective workforce time to review the employer’s proposals and suggest any alternatives that could avoid or reduce redundancies. It’s also an opportunity to scrutinise the proposed selection criteria and suggest ways your employer can support affected workers (e.g. through redundancy packages or retraining).

Individual consultations are to let affected employees know why they were selected and to argue their case if they wish to stay.

What questions should I ask during my individual consultation?

If you have made peace with leaving your role and don’t wish to oppose your selection, you can simply tell management you have nothing to ask them.

If you intend to oppose selection, you need to understand why you have been selected and mount an argument that your scoring should have been higher and/or there are issues with the criteria they have used or how they have been applied.

Here are some questions you may find useful:

• What scores did I receive in the selection criteria and why?
• How many employees are in my selection pool, and how many of us are being made redundant?
• Why are [x] number of roles being made redundant from my pool specifically?
• Can I have the anonymised scores of my pool?
• Can I have the score I would have needed to achieve to be safe (i.e. the break point)?
• What sources of info did you use to create my scores?
• How was each of my scores calculated?
• How were the criteria measured objectively?

If you suspect inconsistencies in scoring across your pool, dig into this. Even if management is unwilling to answer a question, there’s no harm in asking.

Management should make every effort to share information with you so long as there’s no reasonable chance it could identify another employee in your pool.

My employer is carrying out a collective consultation and must hold elections for employee representatives. How does this work?

In collective consultation, management consults with representatives of affected workers. If there are no recognised trade union reps in your workplace, then employee reps will fill this role.

There may be an agreement in place that gives existing employee reps the right to represent workers (e.g. an information and consultation agreement, also known as an “ICE” agreement). If not, reps must be elected specifically for the consultation and training must be provided to them, paid for by the employer.

There must be at least one rep for each 50 employees, with a minimum of two and a maximum of 25 reps. It is for employers to decide how many rep slots there will be, but they should use this as a guideline.

Only workers can stand as candidates in the election, and priority should be given to those who are affected by the proposed redundancies.

All affected workers are entitled to vote in the election, and may vote for as many candidates as there are rep slots to be elected.

It is for the employer to decide how long the term of office for reps will be. If they are elected for a one-off consultation, they should remain in place for long enough to complete the consultation.

If a rep drops out, the employer must make arrangements to elect someone else in their place.

Once elected, employee reps are entitled to paid time off for training and for fulfilling their duties.

It is good practice for an election to be managed by an independent third party. In some cases, this can be a legal requirement.

The voting system used in an election is for the employer to decide. It may be a simple “first past the post” method or a more complex proportional representation system. The ballot must be held in secret. The election must be held at least 21 days after the employer publicises the voting system they intend to use, allowing time for any challenges to the proposed method.

The nomination system used is also for the employer to decide. Workers may be able to self-nominate, or may need to seek support from a sufficient number of colleagues to stand. The nomination process must be open for at least one week.

If the number of workers nominated is equal to or fewer than the number of rep slots available, no election is necessary. All nominated workers can be automatically appointed as reps.

If no workers are willing to stand for election as a rep, your employer can provide the information that would have been shared with reps in consultation with all affected workers directly, but this should be a last resort. In this case, no collective consultation actually occurs, and the employer may proceed straight to individual consultations.

My employer hasn’t fully consulted us. What can I do?

Employers must always consult affected workers individually and should often consult collectively too.

Employers should seriously consider ways of avoiding dismissals where possible. They should also consider how to mitigate the consequences of any dismissals. If they fail to do this, they are not meeting their obligations.

In such a case, you can make a claim to an employment tribunal for “unfair dismissal”. If successful, your employer may owe affected workers compensation (a “protective award”) of up to 90 days’ full pay.

Any case brought before a tribunal is most likely to succeed if there is one or more of the following:

• a flagrant breach of minimum legal timescales with no reasonable justification.
• a clear failure to provide the information demanded by law during consultation.
• an obvious breach of meaningful consultation (e.g. dismissing workers before holding discussions).

Can collective and individual consultations run side-by-side?

Your employer should hold any collective consultation before starting individual consultations. That said, both can run at the same time. However, if workers are provisionally selected before collective consultation is complete, it may suggest your employer is not engaging in good faith, and could be looked upon poorly by an employment tribunal.

What are some alternatives my employer could consider instead of compulsory redundancies?

It may be possible for an organisation to make savings through means other than redundancy, and the collective workforce will likely have ideas for how to do this.

However, it may still be necessary to reduce staffing costs. Even then, compulsory redundancies can often be avoided. Some alternatives:

• Establishing a voluntary redundancy, or early retirement scheme.
• Freezing recruitment, and limiting the refilling of posts when workers leave the organisation.
• Reducing the use of temporary, agency, or casual staff.
• Reducing or eliminating overtime.
• Reducing working hours.
• Limiting pay rises.
• Moving workers into other roles through suitable alternative employment.
• Promoting voluntary unpaid leave.
• Promoting forms of flexible working that reduce costs (e.g. home working or job sharing).

Alternative employment

Does my employer need to offer me alternative employment within the organisation?

Your employer must offer suitable alternative employment within the organisation wherever possible. If a role is suitable, it should be offered to you instead of redundancy. The offer must be made in writing before your current employment contract ends, and it must start within 4 weeks of your current role ending.

If a suitable role is available but is not offered to you, you can make a claim to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.

If no suitable alternative roles are available, your employer can proceed with your redundancy.

What happens if an alternative role is available and multiple affected workers express interest?

In this case, the role must be offered to any workers on parental leave in the first instance. If this doesn’t apply, a fair process must be followed (e.g. holding interviews for the role). If you don’t win any available roles, your employer can proceed with your redundancy.

Am I entitled to a trial period in my new role?

Yes, you have a right to a 4-week trial period. If you need more time to train for the role, you may be able to agree to an extended trial period with your employer. It must be agreed in writing and have a clear start and end date.

If you decide to leave the role during your trial period, you may still be eligible for redundancy pay, but only if you have a valid reason for leaving (see below).

What happens if I am offered alternative employment and turn it down?

If you refuse an alternative role, you must have a “valid” reason why it’s not suitable if you are to remain eligible for redundancy pay. Examples include:

• the role is lower pay
• health issues
• difficulty getting there (e.g. because of a longer journey, higher cost, or lack of public transport)
• disruption it would cause to your family life

You can refuse an offer without a valid reason but will forfeit your right to redundancy pay.

If my employer offers some workers alternative roles, do they still count towards the overall number of people affected?

Yes, those offered alternative roles still count towards the total number of redundancies. For example, if your employer plans to make 17 workers redundant and offer another 5 workers alternative roles, the total number is over 20, so your employer must still collectively consult.

Dismissal

What should my letter giving notice of dismissal contain?

It should contain the following:

• Your notice period
• Your leaving date
• Any redundancy payment you are owed
• Any pay owed to you for any other reason (e.g. outstanding holiday pay)
• Method and timing of any payment
• Details on any appeal process

Can I take time off work if I receive notice of dismissal?

Yes, your employer must allow workers who are being made redundant a ‘reasonable amount’ of time off during your notice period to look for another job or undertake training.

You will only be entitled to 40% of your typical pay for each day you take off unless your contract specifies a higher amount.

You can only take time off once you are in your notice period. You cannot take time off if you have been provisionally selected.

Do I need to pay tax on earnings during my notice period?

Yes, you’ll pay tax on your earnings during your notice period. This remains true if you’re not required to work during this period (e.g. you’re given payment in lieu of notice, or you’re placed on garden leave).

Appeals

I’ve been dismissed but want to fight it. What can I do?

Your employer should offer the right to appeal. It is highly recommended that you join UTAW to gain access to rep support through this process.

If your employer has not set out a clear process and timeline for appeals, ask that they do so. Where possible, those who are involved in handling your appeal case should not be the same people who decided on your original selection. There is no set time limit for this process, but swiftness is in everyone’s interest.

If your employer has offered no right to appeal, or if your appeal is rejected and you still believe that the decision was unfair, you can make a claim to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. While “unfair” may seem a subjective term, employment law is clear. You will need to prove one of the following:

• The process your employer used was not fair.
• The decisions made in your specific case did not follow the process.
• You were discriminated against based on a protected characteristic.

If you have worked at your company for under 2 years, you cannot make an individual claim to a tribunal for any reason other than discrimination.

Any other arguments are unlikely to succeed. Employment law is complex, which is why union support is important to ensure you stand the strongest possible chance, and that you are realistic about your chances.

I appealed and my case was upheld. What happens now?

If your appeal has been upheld and your notice period is not yet over, your employment contract should continue as though you were never selected for redundancy in the first place.

If your notice period has already ended, you should be reinstated in your original role. In any future redundancy scenario, your length of service (“period of continuous employment”) will apply unbroken from when you were first employed. You may be owed arrears of wages between the end of your notice period and the date of your reinstatement. You will need to return any redundancy payment made to you.

I want to bring a case to an employment tribunal. How can I do this?

If you are a trade union member, your union will be able to help. UTAW members can contact UnionLine if they wish to bring a claim of unfair dismissal or are seeking owed redundancy pay. UnionLine can submit a claim to an employment tribunal on your behalf.

Bear in mind that there are time limits on bringing a case before an employment tribunal:

• 3 months for unfair dismissal, or a contractual redundancy payment.
• 6 months for a statutory redundancy payment.

Some cases may only be viable if you were continuously employed for long enough. For instance, most cases of unfair dismissal can only be taken to a tribunal if you have served two years continuously. If in doubt, reach out to UnionLine.

If you are not a trade union member, you can submit a case online via the gov.uk website. See more here: https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunals/make-a-claim.

Redundancy pay

How much redundancy pay am I entitled to?

Your employment contract may specify that your employer needs to pay more than the statutory (legal minimum) amount. Check your contract and speak to your recognised trade union if your workplace has one. Your employer can also award packages above and beyond the legal minimum. The information below relates to the statutory amounts only.

The gov.uk website has a statutory redundancy pay calculator that you can find here: https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-redundancy-pay.

If you have been employed by your organisation for under 2 years continuously by the date your notice period ends, you are unfortunately not entitled to any redundancy pay.

If you have been employed by your organisation for 2 years or more continuously by the date your notice period ends, you are owed redundancy pay. This is calculated as:

• 0.5 weeks’ pay for each full year worked where you were under 22.
• 1 weeks’ pay for each full year worked where you were between 22 and 41.
• 1.5 weeks’ pay for each full year worked where you were 41 or older.

Weekly pay is the average you earned per week over the 12 weeks before the date of your dismissal. It is capped at £643 in Britain and £669 in Northern Ireland. It should include any regular overtime specified in your contract and any bonuses or commission.

Length of service caps at 20 years. This means the maximum statutory redundancy pay is £19,290 in Britain and £20,070 in Northern Ireland.

If you accepted reduced hours in the previous 12 months to avoid redundancy, your weekly pay must be calculated using your salary before the reduction in hours took effect.

Do I need to pay tax on a redundancy payment?

You will not pay tax or National Insurance on the first combined £30,000 of:

• statutory redundancy pay
• additional severance, or enhanced redundancy payments from your employer
• non-cash benefits (e.g. company property you keep after your employment ends)

You won’t pay tax or National Insurance on contributions your employer makes to a registered pension scheme as part of your termination payment (though you’ll owe tax on any employer contributions that exceed the Annual Allowance ).

You will pay tax and National Insurance on any aspects of your termination pay considered earnings. This includes:

• unpaid wages
• holiday pay
• bonuses
• payments you receive for agreeing to enter into a restrictive covenant (an agreement not to work for a competitor for a set time after leaving)
• payments you receive instead of working during your notice period (e.g. payment in lieu of notice)

How long can my employer take to make a redundancy payment?

Your employer must make any redundancy payment no later than your final payday. It can only be paid later if you both agree to another date in writing.

My employer refuses to make a redundancy payment I am entitled to. What can I do?

You can make a claim for payment to an employment tribunal.

If seeking a contractual redundancy payment (which may be higher than the statutory amount), you must bring a case before a tribunal within 3 months of your notice period ending (or your date of dismissal, if you have no notice period).

If seeking a statutory redundancy payment, you must bring a case before a tribunal within 6 months of your notice period ending (or your date of dismissal, if you have no notice period).

Supporting others

I want to support a provisionally selected colleague through their individual consultation. What should I know?

Start by reaching out to your colleague and, if necessary, introducing yourself. Let them know you’re there to help them and find out the times of their consultation meetings.

You should arrange a conversation with them beforehand to learn more about their circumstances:

• What outcome do they want?
• Is there anything they want to contest r.e. their selection? If so, what?
• What kind of support would they like from you throughout the process?
• Would they like you to attend their consultation meetings?
• If attending, how would they like you to act in meetings? For example, should you be stern or warm, and should you ask questions yourself or only when prompted?

If they plan to oppose their selection, help them build their case and plan out questions they would like to ask. A bullet point list of questions, ready to go, will be a huge help. You can send management these questions straight away or wait until the call. If they seem anxious, suggest they practise asking the questions out loud.

If you’re joining their consultation meetings, remind them that they should give management some notice, and have them add you to calendar invites. Bear in mind employers are not required to let workers bring a rep or colleague to consultation meetings (unless their employment contract states otherwise), but it’s certainly good practice. If management is resistant, have your colleague emphasise how stressed they are by their situation and how much having support in the meeting will reassure them.

During meetings:

You’re there for support and should only act as you’ve discussed. Never answer questions on behalf of your colleague.

• If you are asking questions, call out management on anything suspicious and ask for further clarity on anything that remains unclear.

• Take minutes of everything discussed.

• If they appear overwhelmed, jump in and ask to take a break for a few minutes.

Try to debrief after each meeting. Check in with them, see how they’re feeling, and form a plan of action moving forward.

It may seem daunting joining consultations as support, but it’s not actually very scary! The most valuable thing you can give your colleague is someone unequivocally on their side.

Trade union

My workplace is covered by a trade union recognition agreement. How does that affect the redundancy process?

If your employer collectively consults, and your workplace has a recognised trade union, management must consult your union reps on their proposals. They must also meaningfully consider any counterproposals your reps make.

Recognition agreements often impose stricter responsibilities on employers seeking to make redundancies than is set out in law. For instance, your employment contracts may specify that collective consultation is triggered even when fewer than 20 workers are provisionally selected.

Management may be required to negotiate with your union reps, not just inform and consult them, and seek agreement before they can proceed with any redundancies. Speak to your trade union and check the terms of your agreement to learn more.

I’m not yet a trade union member. If I join now, can I receive individual legal representation?

Rules vary by trade union, but generally speaking, you must hold membership for a set time before you can claim personal legal representation.

In UTAW, UnionLine is available to advise and represent on many issues from day 1 of membership.

For issues that require a union rep, members are only eligible for issues that started after their 8th week of membership.

External Resources

https://www.gov.uk/staff-redundant

https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights

https://www.gov.uk/termination-payments-and-tax-when-you-leave-a-job

https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunals/make-a-claim

https://www.acas.org.uk/dismissals/unfair-dismissal

https://www.acas.org.uk/manage-staff-redundancies

https://www.acas.org.uk/collective-consultation-redundancy

https://unionline.co.uk/employment-rights/redundancy/

https://www.bdbf.co.uk/collective-redundancies-new-ecj-ruling-on-how-to-calculate-numbers-of-redundancies/

https://www.blandy.co.uk/about/news-and-insights/insights/multiple-redundancies-the-meaning-of-establishment-for-collective-consultation

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