Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has agreed to allow a trade union access to its UK workforce for the first time. The union Prospect, which represents more than 160,000 workers across various sectors including technology, will be able to engage with Meta’s approximately 5,000 employees based in the UK to discuss union membership.

While Prospect already has members among Meta staff, this marks the first formal agreement reached between the union and the company. Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, described the arrangement as a significant move toward providing Meta employees with a stronger voice in the workplace. The agreement comes ahead of new legislation granting trade unions the right to access workplaces, set to take effect next month under the Employment Rights Act.

Clancy praised Meta for voluntarily entering into the agreement prior to the new legal requirement, saying it sends a positive signal to employees about the company’s willingness to engage with unions. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that the company aims to offer employees a straightforward route to learn about union membership. They added that Meta’s industrial relations team collaborates with employee representative groups across multiple countries and intends to maintain the same approach in the UK.

The tech sector, which constitutes a growing portion of the labour market, has comparatively low levels of union representation. Official statistics indicate that fewer than 6 percent of technology workers are union members, a rate that is substantially lower than the just over 12 percent seen across the broader private sector. Clancy emphasized that workers in the technology industry require the support and representation that unions provide, similar to employees in other fields.