Prospect will be able to meet workers inside Google's offices, including its King's Cross headquarters in London, and communicate with non-unionised staff to encourage them to join. General secretary Mike Clancy framed the agreement as a signal that unions can negotiate with even the biggest global tech companies, citing pay, flexibility, AI deployment and workplace culture as issues members want a voice on.

Google said it signed the agreement to comply with the new legislation, while maintaining that it already had good internal employee relations. A spokesperson said the step builds on existing internal employee representative groups.

The change matters because of what came before. Unions seeking recognition have sometimes had to organise from outside workplaces, as with the GMB's thwarted effort at Amazon's warehouse near Coventry two years ago. Prospect has already struck a similar access deal with Meta, which employs about 5,000 people in the UK, and Google DeepMind is expected to agree a separate arrangement, with the Communication Workers Union seeking recognition there.