A recent report tells a shocking story of the widespread worsening of global workers’ rights – the continued deterioration of conditions for workers around the world. As nations grapple with rising inequality and political unrest, the report indicates that 60% of the global population has become poorer over the last five years. The results only point to events through March 2025. They begin to make the case that urgent reform is needed both in labor rights and economic practices.
As the report demonstrates, the world as a whole spends almost US$3 trillion on arms and weapons each year. This astounding figure puts into context the global problem of untaxed taxing that is continuing to outpace fairness. It compounds the severe financial hardship that so many employed people experience. Inputs Fortune is wealth concentrating fast. In five short years, the net worth of the three richest billionaires has more than doubled—at the same time that millions around the world have fallen into poverty.
Among the countries identified as having the worst conditions for workers are Bangladesh, Belarus, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Tunisia, and Turkey. Based on the research, the report found that in over half (three out of five) of all global regions, the situation for workers’ rights is getting worse. The Americas and Europe have both reached their lowest levels on the index since it began in 2014.
Luc Triangle, ITUC secretary general, underscored how the link between deepening economic crisis and rise of political extremism.
“In the last four or five years with Covid and increased inflation, people lost purchasing power and that’s the breeding ground for extremist parties to get voters to vote for extremist parties, which actually don’t offer any solution for the working people,” – Luc Triangle
Triangle also called out elected officials who subvert democratic principles after they gain power.
“In more and more countries, we have elected leaders that once they are elected democratically, they are taking action against democratic values,” – Luc Triangle
This development has triggered a coordinated attack on trade union rights and workers’ rights. Even more alarmingly, 87% of countries surveyed are in breach of the right to strike, with 80% breaking the right to collective bargaining. In 72% of the countries surveyed, workers’ access to justice has been shrunk.
The report underscores damage done by some of the policies they passed during Donald Trump’s administration. The former president decimated the staff at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. He speedily evicted a board member from the Federal Labor Relations Authority. On top of that, he released an executive order that stripped collective bargaining rights from the majority of federal workers. These moves have fed into a broader, poisonous environment for labor rights and organizing in the U.S. today.
Triangle placed these interventions in the context of the growing trend of political leaders persecuting human rights linked to labor.
“The first target of those leaders in many countries is they attack trade human rights and workers’ rights because we are the biggest defenders of democratic values and in that sense also their biggest opponents as largest social movement in the world,” – Luc Triangle
As the accompanying map above illustrates, just three countries—Australia, Mexico and Oman—had their ratings increase from 2024. At the same time, the broader field for workers is very dark.
As Triangle put it, this moment represents a billionaires’ “coup” against democratic institutions across the globe. They think this is making it harder to protect workers’ rights.
“Whether it’s Elon Musk in the US or Eduardo Eurnekian in Argentina, we see the same playbook of unfairness and authoritarianism in action around the world,” – The 2025 Global Rights Index