The ITUC strongly condemns the violent repression of workers, trade unionists and social movements in Iran, as protests and strikes have spread nationwide since late 2025 in response to a deepening economic and social crisis.

Iran’s economic collapse is having a devastating impact on the daily lives of working people, particularly women and children. Millions are being pushed into poverty by the rapid currency depreciation, accelerating inflation, soaring prices for food and essential goods, the sustained erosion of real wages, growing unemployment, and the rapid expansion of insecure and precarious forms of work.

Workers in key sectors, including public services, education, healthcare, oil and gas and manufacturing, as well as in the informal economy, are heavily affected and increasingly drawn into protests that are no longer confined to isolated urban centres.

Instead of engaging in social dialogue or respecting international labour standards, the authorities continue to:

Systematically treat labour protests, strikes and collective action as threats to “national security”. This deliberate securitisation of labour relations is being used to criminalise trade union activity, suppress free speech and peaceful assembly, and justify excessive force, mass surveillance, arbitrary detention and judicial harassment.
Effectively ban independent trade unions. Workers are denied the right to freely establish and join organisations of their own choosing, in clear violation of ILO Conventions No. 87 and No. 98. Trade unionists and labour rights defenders continue to face severe reprisals, including lengthy prison sentences, torture and, in the most extreme cases, death sentences – simply for exercising their fundamental rights.
Reports indicate that since late 2025 the expansion of protests has been met with intensified state repression, including the use of lethal force, resulting in deaths and mass detentions.

Luc Triangle continued: “The ITUC condemns these actions unequivocally and calls for an immediate end to violence, full respect for human and trade union rights, and accountability for abuses.

“We are witnessing in Iran the systematic crushing of workers’ rights under the false pretext of national security. Workers exercising their right to claim decent jobs with fair wages continue to be met with repression, imprisonment or even death sentences.

“Working people in Iran have had enough and further repression will not bring a solution. The Iranian authorities must now engage in social dialogue, immediately stop criminalising trade union activity, release all detained trade unionists, and comply with their obligations under international labour and human rights law to build a new social contract in Iran.”

The ITUC stands in full solidarity with workers and trade unionists in Iran and calls on the ILO, UN human rights mechanisms and the international community to intensify scrutiny and exert sustained pressure to ensure respect for fundamental labour rights.