According to the ITUC* Global Rights Index 2025, workers' rights are deteriorating rapidly on every continent, with Europe and the Americas recording their worst scores since the index was created in 2014. Only seven countries currently receive the highest rating – 1 for respecting workers' rights, compared with 39 countries rated 5. If the current trend continues, within the next ten years no country will score 1.

Key findings:

• Three of the world's five regions have seen conditions worsen. The Americas (3.68) and Europe (2.78) recorded their worst results since the index began. European countries have continued their rapid decline from 1.84 points in 2014 – the steepest fall of any region in the world over the past 10 years.
• Only seven of the 151 countries surveyed (fewer than 5%) received the highest rating of 1. Ten years ago, 18 countries held that rating.
• The ten worst countries in the world for workers are Bangladesh, Belarus, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Tunisia and Türkiye.
• The worst region in the world for workers is the Middle East and North Africa, with an average rating of 4.68.
• Trade unionists were killed in Cameroon, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru and South Africa.
• 87% of countries violated the right to strike, and 80% violated the right to collective bargaining.
• Workers' access to justice was restricted in 72% of countries, the worst figure ever recorded.

“After the Second World War, a system was built on the foundations of democracy, trade union rights and justice. The ITUC Global Rights Index 2025, however, reveals a situation showing that this justly built system is facing betrayal,” says ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle. “Governments have, in effect, worked together to drive decades of deregulation, neoliberalism and neglect, which has led to the collapse of workers' rights. It has stripped millions of people of their rights and opened the way to extremism, authoritarianism and a billionaire coup against democracy, which now threatens democracy itself. If this rate of decline continues, within ten years there will no longer be a single country in the world receiving the highest rating for respecting workers' rights. This is an international scandal, and it is not inevitable – it is a decision that can be reversed. The ITUC exposes the coordinated attack by the ultra-rich and their political allies to rig the economy against working people. It is entirely possible that workers' rights will deteriorate still further in the 2026 Rights Index.

With strong, independent trade unions and a democracy that is meant for, and works for, everyone, we can take back power and rebuild an economy that serves people rather than corporations. We can hold international institutions accountable to the very people they were created for and whose workers they are meant to protect. Our movement fights for that future every day – and next year's index must show the beginning of real change.”

Other key findings:

• In 12 countries, conditions have deteriorated so badly that they received the lowest possible rating of 5+. They are Afghanistan, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Haiti, Libya, Myanmar, Palestine, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
• 
  Only three countries improved their rating in 2025 – Australia (2), Mexico (3) and Oman (3).

• Seven countries saw their rating worsen – Argentina (4), Costa Rica (4), Georgia (4), Italy (2), Mauritania (5), Niger (4) and Panama (4).
• 75% of countries denied workers the right to establish or join a trade union.
• 74% of countries obstructed the registration of trade unions.
• 45% of countries restricted freedom of expression and assembly.
• Workers were arrested and detained in 71 countries.
• Workers were subjected to violence in 40 countries.

The ITUC Global Rights Index 2025 was published on 2 June to coincide with the opening of the International Labour Conference (ILC) at the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Switzerland – the world's parliament of labour. The ITUC's priorities at the ILC include tackling violations of rights, improving protection in the platform economy, addressing biological hazards at work and promoting innovative routes to formalising informal work. The violations exposed in the 2025 index will inform and strengthen this work.

The ITUC Global Rights Index is a comprehensive review of workers' rights in law, rating 151 countries against 97 indicators derived from ILO** conventions and case law, and as such it is the only database of its kind. Violations are recorded each year from April to March of the following year.

*ITUC – https://www.ituc-csi.org/who-we-are

**ILO – https://www.ilo.org/about-ilo