Decision

Access Decision

Updated 26 January 2026

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Case Number: TUR1/1468(2025)

26 January 2026

CENTRAL ARBITRATION COMMITTEE

TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS (CONSOLIDATION) ACT 1992

SCHEDULE A1 - COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: RECOGNITION

ORDER ON ACCESS ARRANGEMENTS

The Parties:

CWU

and

Apple Retail UK Ltd

1. Background

1)         The CWU (the Union) submitted an application to the CAC on 15 May 2025 that it should be recognised for collective bargaining by Apple Retail UK Ltd (the Employer) for a bargaining unit comprising permanent staff, excluding managers and flexible working employees, based at Apple Grand Arcade, Grand Arcade Shopping Centre, Cambridge, CB2 3AX (the Store). In accordance with section 263 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (the Act), the CAC Chair established a Panel to deal with the case. The Panel consisted of Mr Jonathan Gray, Panel Chair, and, as Members, Mr Robert Light and Ms Claire Sullivan. Ms Susan Cox replaced Mr Gray as Panel Chair for the purpose of this decision only. The Case Manager appointed to support the Panel was Kaniza Bibi.

2)         By its written decision of 6 June, the Panel accepted the Union’s application. On the 15 August the Panel decided that the appropriate bargaining unit was different from the bargaining unit proposed by the Union in its application. By a decision dated 19 September the Panel found that the application was valid for the purposes of paragraph 20 of Schedule A1 to the Act (the Schedule) and the CAC must proceed with the application.

3)         In a letter dated 19 September the Panel, in accordance paragraph 23(2) of the Schedule, notified the parties that a secret ballot would be held. The letter explained that the Schedule contained provisions to allow a trade union access to the workers in the bargaining unit before a ballot takes place and that the parties should use the 10-day notification period to agree access arrangements for the Union during the ballot period and to send a copy of the a. ss agreement to the CAC case manager. The parties were provided with a copy of the “Code of Practice: access and unfair practices during recognition and derecognition ballots” to assist in their negotiations. However, on 3 November the Union sent an email to the CAC stating that the Employer was refusing to meet the standards of the Code and that it wished the CAC to adjudicate on the matter of access.

4)         On 28 November 2025, Mr Gray the Panel Chair held an informal access meeting. During this meeting, the Panel Chair presented two options to the parties. Option 1 was that the Panel would not begin the balloting procedure as required under paragraph 25(9) but would instead adjudicate on the matter as if it constituted a complaint under paragraph 26 of the Schedule. The effect of its decision would rest on the consent of the parties rather than it having statutory force under paragraph 27. Option 2 was for the CAC to issue a notification under paragraph 25(9) which would start the ballot period, whereupon it would be open to the Union to make a complaint that the Employer had failed to fulfil its duties under paragraph 26. The parties were asked state by 5 December 2025 whether they would like Option 1 to be adopted or whether they would like the CAC to issue a notification under paragraph 25(9). If Option 1 was the preference of both parties, they each had to give an undertaking that they would abide by the outcome of the adjudication.

5)         Both parties responded and stated a preference for Option 1. A hearing was scheduled for 13 January 2026 for the Panel to adjudicate on the issue in dispute between the parties. Both parties gave an undertaking to accept, abide by, and implement the Panel’s decision. The parties were asked to supply submissions by 6 January. The Employer sent its submissions on 6 January. The Union confirmed it did not have any written submissions.

2. Employer’s submissions

6)         The Employer stated that from September 2025 onwards the parties had engaged in discussions regarding access arrangements, and some measure of agreement had been reached.

7)         The Employer had offered to facilitate two 30-minute meetings, one at 8am on a Saturday and the other at 10am on a Sunday, at which the Union would be able to communicate with workers about the ballot and workers would be paid if they choose to attend these meetings. The Union had asked for the meetings to be held during trading hours on a Saturday and a Sunday. It suggested the times when the Employer would normally hold its ‘Download’ meetings, and that they should be scheduled as mandatory for all workers to attend.

8)         Download meetings are the main way the Employer communicates with workers about business and operational issues. It holds 15-minute Download meeting at the start of any shift that begins in the morning on a Saturday, and a 30-minute Download meeting for any shift that begins before 11am on a Sunday. The meetings are to prepare workers for their working days and are carefully scheduled so as not to disrupt the Store’s operations or ability to meet customer demand. The Union’s proposal on meetings would have a significant impact on the practical management of the Store: Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest trading days with an average of 41% of total weekly customer traffic. Staff hours are budgeted very closely to match customer demand patterns. If the Employer had to allocate 30 minutes on both days during trading hours for the Union’s meetings, it would still have to hold its usual Download meetings with staff to prepare for the working day, resulting in additional time being scheduled away from customer-facing tasks.

9)         The Employer gave as an example its in-Store ‘Genius Bar’, where it carries out repairs and provides technical support. This runs on a booking system, and the availability of that booking system for customers is derived from team members being scheduled to the ‘queue’ and ‘repair’ job tasks involved in the operation of the Bar. In order for a worker to attend a 30-minute meeting with the Union, his or her schedule would need to be adjusted to the ‘Meeting’ job task for that time, effectively closing appointment availability for customers. Based on the average number of customers seen in a day at the Genius Bar, and the time being requested from the Union to meet with staff, the Employer would lose roughly 20% of staff availability for customers that day.

10)       The Employer had offered to facilitate the Union holding 15-minute drop-in “surgery” meetings with individual or small groups of workers to answer their queries. The Employer wanted surgeries to be organised so that workers could attend on an optional basis outside of their scheduled working hours i.e. during breaks during their shift or before or after their shifts. Workers’ shift start- and end-times and breaks are staggered throughout the working day, so this would enable the Union to efficiently schedule surgery meetings without unnecessarily disrupting operations in the Store. The Union wanted each employee to have a scheduled, mandatory slot during their working hours to attend a surgery but scheduling surgeries in this way would significantly disrupt operations and the Employer’s ability to serve its customers in the Store. If surgeries were scheduled during shifts it was impossible to guarantee that a team member could be finished with a customer interaction at exactly the time of their 15-minute surgery meeting. For this reason, the Employer itself does not schedule 15-minute meetings with team members during shift times, other than the Download meeting at the start of each shift.

11)       Further to this, the Employer explained there is no practicable space in the Store to hold the surgeries other than the People Room, which is a 5-minute walk from the shop floor. As a result, at least 25 minutes would need to be taken out of a worker’s scheduled working time for each surgery. As customer appointments were scheduled in 15-minute blocks, this would need to be rounded up to 30 minutes for each surgery. This would significantly reduce the number of appointments that could be pre-booked by customers in the Store and have a material impact on sales revenue for the day.

12)       The Employer understood the Union to be alleging that the Employer had regularly held small group meetings with staff to discuss the recognition campaign and the ballot during working time, but this was not correct. The Employer confirmed that from time to time, managers had been informally approached by workers with questions about the ballot, which they had always tried to answer.

13)       The Employer had agreed to provide a space in the break room for the Union to leave materials but was not willing to suspend its ‘Solicitation and Distribution Policy’ during the ballot period to facilitate the Union’s request that a representative be allowed actively to distribute materials in the Store. The Employer believed that the Union’s request would unnecessarily increase tensions in the workplace and would be disruptive and invasive for workers who wanted to relax in this space with their colleagues during their breaks.

14)       The Employer said it had agreed to allow the Union to issue two emails to workers setting out the Union’s view on the ballot but did not agree to accommodate the Union’s request to send additional communications via WorkJam. WorkJam is a communications tool which workers can access on their personal devices and the Employer primarily uses WorkJam for scheduling purposes. Workers can log-in to it on their personal ‘phones to check and swap their shifts. The Employer said there is also a ‘group chat’ function on Workjam, which is occasionally used to share business-critical information relating to team scheduling as, for example, if the Store were required to close unexpectedly and it needed to let everyone know that they should not turn up for work that day.

15)       The Employer explained that in the past, some individuals had used the ‘group chat’ function on WorkJam to communicate about non-scheduling matters. This was unauthorised use and it had caused issues because workers had turned off notifications, to avoid communications they were not interested in, meaning that they missed important work-related messages. The Employer had therefore taken steps to stop workers from using the chat function for purposes not related to scheduling. The Employer had not used WorkJam for communications about the ballot, and it did not intend to use it for that purpose. Allowing communications on behalf of the Union to be issued via WorkJam would exacerbate the existing problem of workers turning off WorkJam notifications when they started to receive communications that they were not interested in and would therefore undermine the use of WorkJam for its intended purposes.

3. The Panel’s decision

16)       In advance of the hearing, the Panel Chair compiled a list, based on the Employer’s written submissions, of what had been agreed between the parties and what was still in dispute and distributed it to the parties. At the beginning of the hearing, the parties confirmed that the list accurately represented the areas still in dispute, on which the Panel was asked to adjudicate. During the course of the hearing, the areas in dispute were further narrowed and Miss Wilson, the Store’s manager, was able to supplement the Employer’s submissions by answering questions from the Panel about the Store’s operation. The Panel was grateful to both parties for their attendance at the virtual hearing, for their written and oral submissions and for their confirmation that they would accept, and abide by, the Panel’s determination.

17)       In reaching its decision, the Panel has borne in mind at all times that the duty of the Employer, under paragraph 26(3) of the Schedule, is to give the Union such access to the workers constituting the bargaining unit as is reasonable to enable the union to inform the workers of the object of the ballot and to seek their support and their opinions on the issues involved.  Having taken account of all the evidence that has been put before it by the parties, the guidance contained in the “Code of Practice on access to workers during recognition and derecognition ballots” and its own industrial relations experience, the Panel has reached the following decision, which incorporates the matters on which the parties agree.

• As agreed by the parties, the Union will have the use of a noticeboard in the Store’s breakroom to display materials and, in addition, a leaflet holder for Union materials for workers to take away if they wish, including contact details for the Union.

• As agreed by the parties, the Union may conduct two meetings within the access period, one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday, to speak to workers within the Bargaining Unit about the object of the ballot and to seek their support and their opinions on the issues involved.

• As agreed by the parties, each meeting will last up to 30 minutes.

• As agreed by the parties, the Union’s representatives will have access to the Store for the purpose of conducting these meetings and the surgeries (see below).

• As agreed by the parties, attendance at these meetings will be treated as paid working time.

• The Panel decides that the meetings will be held before the beginning of the scheduled start time for shifts, at 8.15am on a Saturday and 10.15am on a Sunday. The dates of the meetings must be agreed between the parties but should be scheduled as soon as practicable to ensure that the ballot is not delayed. The Panel has had regard to paragraph 29 of the Code. This states that the Union should ensure that disruption to the business is minimised. It says that access should usually take place during normal working hours but at times which minimise any possible disruption to the activities of the employer. Consideration should be given to holding events, particularly those involving a large proportion of the workers in the bargaining unit, during rest periods or towards the end of a shift. Paragraph 49 of the Code states that the union should ensure that business costs and business disruption are minimised and should be aware of the employer’s need to maintain a level of service. The Panel considers that, in the circumstances of this case, where shifts are tightly scheduled to meet customer demand, allowing the Union’s request to hold its meetings at the time allocated for Download meetings would be unduly disruptive to the Employer’s activities, those meetings being necessary to update workers on operational matters. As the Employer has agreed to pay the workers for attendance at the meetings, the Panel accepts that the timing of them before the beginning of the shift amounts to allowing reasonable access.

• The Panel confirms that attendance at the meetings is voluntary and workers will not be scheduled by the Employer to attend them.

• As agreed by the parties, on the same day as the meetings, the Union will offer surgeries to answer individual worker’s queries, each surgery to last up to 15 minutes per individual or group of individuals (if the workers prefer to attend in small groups).

• As agreed by the parties, the Union will have the use of the People Office at the Store to conduct these surgeries.

• The Panel decides that individuals may arrange with the Union to attend a surgery either outside their shift time or during their scheduled breaks during a shift. They will either be paid at their normal rate of pay for time they spend at a surgery or be given an equivalent amount of paid time off at the earliest practicable opportunity, at the Employer’s discretion. Paragraph 31 of the Code recommends that wherever practicable the union organise surgeries during periods of down-time such as rest or meal breaks. The Panel accepts the Employer’s submission that allowing workers to attend sessions at times scheduled by the Union over the full course of the day would cause significant scheduling problems for the Employer and be unduly disruptive to customer service at the Store. Break times are spread across several hours in the day, giving the Union the opportunity to offer numerous appointments across the day. The Panel considers that this, together with the fact that a worker will be entitled to be paid or given paid time off in lieu for attendance at a surgery, even if it falls during what would otherwise have been an unpaid break or time they were not scheduled to be at work, amounts to allowing reasonable access.

• As agreed by the parties, during the access period an Apple employee who is a Union member may send two emails to the workers within the bargaining unit limited to informing the recipients of the ballot and notifying them of the meetings and surgeries, setting out the Union’s case on recognition and providing contact details which a recipient may use to seek further information or engagement with the Union. The Panel decides that the Union will not in addition be granted access to the ‘group chat’ function on the WorkJam system. It accepts the Employer’s submission, which is supported by the guide to the use of the system provided by the Employer and Miss Wilson’s evidence, that WorkJam’s primary purpose is to act as a tool for notifying workers about their work schedules. It would not be appropriate to allow the system to be used to notify workers about meetings and surgeries at which attendance is voluntary and not required by the Employer. The Panel accepts that workers in the bargaining unit have access to a computer at work to read their work emails and so can obtain information about the meetings and surgeries through the emails the Union sends. They can be alerted about the need to read their work emails by information the Union posts on the noticeboard in the breakroom.

Panel

Ms Susan Cox, Panel Chair

Mr Robert Light

Ms Claire Sullivan

26 January 2026

4. Appendix

Names of those who attended the hearing

For the Union

Jamie Gilman                           -          Workplace Rep UTAW-CWU

Edwin Dorley                           -          Tech Sector Support Coordinator UTAW-CWU

John Chadfield                        -          National Officer - Technology

For the Employer

Andrew Mitchell                     -           Employee and Labour Relations Leader UK & Sweden

Roz Wilson                              -           Store Leader, Apple Grand Arcade

Hayley Kilgallen                     -           Market Leader, East Anglia

Els Janssens                             -           Managing Counsel, EMEIA Employment Law

Jesse Crozier                           -           Counsel, Devereux Chambers

William Brown                        -           Associate, Lewis Silkin LLP