At a time when workers worldwide are increasingly faced with impossible daily choices, such as whether to feed their children or clothe them, they are being failed by their governments and their leaders. As millions of households struggle in a debilitating scenario of squeezed incomes and an entrenched cost-of-living crisis, policymakers and business leaders are actively restricting workers’ rights to collectively demand fairer wages or to legally exercise their right to strike.
With repeated calls for fair wages and conditions going unheard and governments taking a wrecking ball to the right to strike and collective bargaining, workers’ faith in democracy is crumbling. In a year where four billion people globally will participate in elections, right-wing authoritarians are circling, singling out easy scapegoats to blame in the run-up to elections and forwarding an anti-worker agenda of their own to put into play beyond them. Democracy hangs in the balance.
Almost nine out of 10 countries worldwide violated the right to strike, while about eight in 10 countries denied workers the right to bargain collectively for better terms and conditions. In a deeply worrying development this year, 49% of countries arbitrarily arrested or detained trade union members, up from 46% in 2023, while more than four in 10 countries denied or constrained freedom of speech or assembly.
These figures and trends reinforce a global picture in which hard-won democratic rights and civil liberties are under grave and relentless attack. That is why, this year, the ITUC launched its For Democracy campaign in support of the rights and freedoms that all individuals should enjoy without fear of persecution or oppression.
In real terms, 65 countries out of 151 surveyed infringed this right – an increase of 29 since 2014, when the Index began.
Argentina has witnessed mass demonstrations in response to President Javier Milei’s attempts to criminalise street protests as part of harsh austerity measures, while Zimbabwe has introduced a law that makes it illegal for anyone to call for economic sanctions on the country.
In Egypt, it is estimated that, since 2018 – when all independent unions were dissolved – the number of independent trade unions has decreased from 1,500 to approximately 150. The authorities have placed often absurd obstacles in the way of attempts to register a union.
In Myanmar, military authorities abducted a union leader and held him incommunicado for five months before he was sentenced – without legal representation – on charges of terrorism.
Nine union leaders in Cambodia were prosecuted for engaging in a peaceful strike against union busting at a casino, while mass protests against pension reforms in France were violently suppressed by police.
The situation remains dire in most countries. In Morocco, judges could not form or join a trade union. In Rwanda, the security services were not allowed to organise, and in Japan, the law excluded firefighters, prison staff, and the Japan Coast Guard from this right.
In Sri Lanka, the government removed four unions from the reconstituted tripartite National Labour Advisory Council, essentially making it easier for employers to influence labour law reforms.
In one shocking example, the Supreme Court in North Macedonia transferred the property of the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (CCM) to the state, effectively legitimising the forceful takeover of union property.
In Kenya, police violently disrupted a peaceful protest in Nairobi calling for medical interns to be given postings after extensive delays in the placement process. In Panama, the offices of a union which orchestrated action against a mining concession were set on fire. Trade unionists and workers died because of violence or were killed in six countries: Bangladesh, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea.
Each year, the ITUC Global Rights Index rates countries depending on their compliance with collective labour rights and documents the violations of internationally recognised rights by governments and employers.
In 2024, these are the 10 worst countries for working people: Bangladesh, Belarus, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Guatemala, Myanmar, the Philippines, Tunisia, and Türkiye.
Source: ITUC
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