Arrests, violence, digital surveillance… Workers’ rights around the world are deteriorating, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) warned on Monday, including in “major democracies” like the United States or France, “a sign that the crisis has become systemic.”
“Once considered stable, countries like the United States and France are now contributing to a global upsurge in repression, exposing the systemic attack on democracy and rights at work,” warns the organization in the thirteenth edition of its ITUC Global Rights Index.
Thus, “the United States joins the list of countries to watch as attacks on workers’ freedoms accelerate the erosion of democracy.” In question, “restrictions on collective bargaining and the use of force against workers”.
As for France, it is experiencing “its worst ranking, a sign of a prolonged decline in workers’ rights, notably characterized by repression of union activists and restrictions imposed on demonstrations.”
In general, the number of countries that deny workers access to justice, place them in detention or resort to violence, attacks on freedom of expression or assembly, is increasing around the world, according to this survey.
“The 2026 edition of the ITUC Global Rights Index reveals that the workers’ rights crisis is no longer limited to a few marginal cases – it is now at the very heart of democracies,” commented Luc Triangle, ITUC General Secretary.
He thus denounces “a coordinated attack on democracy – a coup d’état by billionaires, supported by political leaders; workers are stripped of their rights and silenced, and economies are manipulated for the benefit of a powerful few.”
Spectacular fall of Argentina
The ITUC reports “three structural trends”: prominent union leaders “targeted”, victims of arrests, violence or prosecution; digital surveillance which makes it possible to “control and bring staff into line, silence workers and prevent union mobilization”; and governments that “sideline unions and consult them less and less” when introducing new labor laws or labor law reforms.
The ITUC, which has been carrying out this study since 2014, ranks 151 countries on the basis of 97 indicators based on conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and its case law.
The scores of European and American countries “reached their worst level since the first edition of the index in 2014, a sign that the crisis has become systemic”. Furthermore, “the rise of the extreme right in Europe is increasingly reflected in hostility towards unions and their members”.
Other countries whose situation is deteriorating include Argentina, now among the “worst countries in the world for workers, after a spectacular drop in its ranking (…) in just two years – one of the steepest drops ever recorded in the index”.
In power since the end of 2023, ultraliberal Argentine President Javier Milei has notably initiated a “protocol” to fight against the “absolute disorder” of demonstrations with road blocking, by increasing the powers of the police and committing to “pay the organizers”.
According to the CSI, “Milei’s attack on workers’ rights and protections has caused a decline in labor rights that echoes some of the darkest chapters in the country’s history,” an allusion to the military dictatorship of the 1970s.
Panama also enters the list of ten worst countries in the world for workers’ rights, alongside Belarus, Egypt, Ecuador, Eswatini, Myanmar, Nigeria, Tunisia and Turkey.
Eight countries, on the other hand, appear among the “good students”, where the ITUC has only observed “sporadic violations of union rights”, all in Europe (Germany, Denmark, Iceland, etc.), apart from Uruguay.
