From Alabama to Argentina: workers’ rights in freefall

“The crisis for workers’ rights is no longer confined to the margins, it is now at the heart of democracies. Workers and their unions are fighting back. The struggle for workers’ rights is the fight for democracy itself,”

says Atle Høie, IndustriALL general secretary.

Three out of four countries deny workers the right to organize. Half of all countries arrested or detained workers for exercising their union rights. Violent attacks on workers rose by six per cent. Civil liberties violations, arrests, persecution and killing of trade union leaders, increased in 50 per cent of countries.

The findings reflect what members of IndustriALL affilaites experience. Union busting is explicitly identified as a tactic in the index, including in Estonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia and Spain. In the United States, Mercedes-Benz spent more than U$600,000 on specialist anti-union firms at its Alabama plant while publicly claiming to respect workers’ rights. The US watchlist placement confirms that case is not an exception. It is part of a systemic pattern.

IndustriALL affiliates on the frontline

Argentina’s rating has collapsed from 3 to 5 in just two years, one of the steepest declines recorded. The country now appears on the ten worst countries list for the first time. IndustriALL affiliate the Unión Obrera Metalúrgica (UOMRA) is facing a judicial intervention to remove its democratically elected leadership, in direct violation of ILO Convention 87. IndustriALL has written to the UOMRA in solidarity and called on the Argentine authorities to respect union autonomy.

Other findings include:

• Fifty per cent of countries arrested or detained workers for exercising their union rights, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Indonesia and Albania.
• Violent attacks on workers increased by 6 per cent, including in India, Palestine, Ukraine and South Africa. Israeli forces raided the offices of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions in Nablus.
• The ten worst countries for workers in 2026 are Argentina, Belarus, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Myanmar, Nigeria, Panama, Tunisia and Türkiye. Argentina and Panama are new entries on the list.
• Digital surveillance is increasingly being used to monitor and suppress organising activity.
• Governments are sidelining unions, consulting them less before introducing or amending labour laws.

Says Atle Høie:

“Behind every one of these numbers is a worker who was arrested, a union leader who was threatened, a workplace where people were too afraid to organize. This is happening in countries that call themselves democracies. IndustriALL will not stand by while our affiliates and their members are criminalized for doing what every worker has the right to do.”