Countries With the Weakest Labour Laws in 2025

In 2025, the world’s workers’ rights have turned to a critical path, with workers ‘ rights declining all around the world on various continents. The 12th Global Rights Index (sexes) by the International Trade Union Confederation (2015) states that worker rights have steadily gotten worse in Europe and the Americas, registering their lowest score since the inception of the Index, to measure workplace violations, after the year 2014. Only seven countries among the 151 sampled possessed the highest score in safeguarding the rights of workers. The results show that ten states are contrasted with the most complex cases of violations of the internationally accepted standards of labour in which employees experience violence, persecution, failure to exercise their rights to collective bargaining, and extreme opposition to freedom of association. These countries suppress trade union operations regularly, criminalise the leaders of their labour movements and do not bring sufficient guarantees to their employees. Also read, Top 5 countries with best labor laws

The Most Affected Regions Face Systematic Oppression

Aled Belarus, Ecuador, Eswatini, Egypt, Tunisia, Myanmar, Nigericthe, the Philippines, and the strongest labour laws refer to the ten countries identified with the weakest in 2025. These countries have similar features such as systematic violence against union members, criminalisation of trade union activities and non-enforcement of the existing labour laws. There was an overall drop in the ratings of average countries across three out of the five regions in the world, with only seven countries out of 151 surveyed getting the highest category of rating. Employees in these economies also experience unreasonable arrest, detention, unproven arrests, and even beatings when trying to form some unions or negotiate better terms of work. This has deteriorated especially among the workers in the garment sector who are compelled to lose their jobs and be charged with a criminal offence of joining the unions.

Declining Global Standards and Emerging Concerns

In 2025, seven countries recorded the heightened situation, i.e. Argentina, Costa Rica, Georgia, Italy, Mauritania, Niger, and Panama. Limited access to worker justice or no access has now been experienced in more than half of European countries, dramatically illustrating this, since the right of less than a third of European countries was limited or denied in 2024, and the right to strike was restricted or limited in 73 per cent of European countries. It is a disturbing trend considering that even traditionally favourable labour-friendly areas are reversing labour laws. This undermining involves more limitations to pickets, broadening of the concept of essential services that extends to include forbidding strikes, and access to lighter legislation regarding unfair dismissal. Several nations have also come up with laws that undermine unions or the significance of having a union in major sectors of the economy.

Country Rankings by Labour Rights Violations

Country	Primary Violations	Region	Violence Against Workers
Bangladesh	Union persecution, killings	Asia-Pacific	Yes
Belarus	Arbitrary arrests, freedom restrictions	Europe	Yes
Ecuador	Strike suppression, legal restrictions	Americas	Limited
Egypt	Mass dismissals, criminalisation	MENA	Yes
Eswatini	Complete ban on unions, authoritarian control	Africa	Yes
Myanmar	Military suppression, violent crackdowns	Asia-Pacific	Yes
Nigeria	Impunity for violations, weak enforcement	Africa	Yes
Philippines	Union killings, intimidation	Asia-Pacific	Yes
Tunisia	Prosecution of union leaders	MENA	Limited
Türkiye	Mass dismissals, denial of bargaining rights	Europe/MENA	Yes

Understanding the Rankings

The table above shows how intense and in which nature the labour rights are violated most in the worst-performing countries across the world. The statistics prove that workplace violence continues to be a common strategy in the repression of labour movements since eight of ten countries cited physical assaults, murders or threats of physical violence against members and organisers of unions or trade unions. The elements of geographic distribution indicate that the problem of weak labour protection is worldwide; workers globally in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and the Americas face this issue. The column of Primary Violations makes it clear that all these nations use various methods to suppress the right of workers, whether by pure violence, criminalisation or bureaucratic barriers and non-application of current legislations at will.

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