Trade union rights aren’t just workplace issues, they’re human rights. With workers’ freedoms shrinking across the UK and globally, it’s time to use every tool at our disposal to defend the rights that protect workers and their communities.
The International Trade Union Confederation Global Rights Index 2025 recently found that ‘workers’ rights are in free fall across every continent’ with 87 per cent of countries violating the right to strike and 80 per cent of countries the right to collective bargaining. This underlines how now, more than ever, it is important to make good use of all the tools available to defend trade union and worker’s rights.
These rights are economic, social and cultural rights. They are enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) which the UK ratified in 1976, pledging to uphold rights including the right to work, the right to just and favourable conditions of work, and protection of trade union rights. These sit alongside the right to health, social security, education and an adequate standard of living.
ICESCR and the review process by the treaty’s monitoring body, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN CESCR) offer further tools for trade unions to fight for labour rights. Academic experts have noted that this may be an underexplored and underexploited area for trade unions. Greater participation in these processes by trade unions will not only serve to strengthen them and but also has the potential to shape the rights themselves.
As Just Fair has previously highlighted, UN CESCR’s recent review of the UK concluded with the Committee making over 90 recommendations to the UK governments on steps to be taken in order to protect economic, social and cultural rights for people in the UK. These included recommendations on work-based rights and trade union rights. Concerns persist, despite plans to repeal some anti-trade union legislation, regarding compliance with obligations under ICESCR as well as other International Labour Organisation and European Social Charter obligations.
Just Fair’s latest article, published in the International Union Rights journal, sets out in more detail how trade unions can engage with ICESCR through the UN committee. Just Fair researcher Kate Ewing explains how UN CESCR offers opportunities for advocacy and accountability, as well as potential opportunities for trade unions to engage with the process of developing the protection and implementation of the very rights which protect them, and their members.
It is also important to recognise how interlinked economic, social and cultural rights are. Work-based rights and trade union rights do not exist in isolation. Secure, fair employment and a strong worker voice underpin many economic, social and cultural rights – from housing and health to an adequate standard of living. Trade union rights are human rights. Now, more than ever, is the time to pull together and use all the available tools to defend them.
Read the full article.
Get involved – join the UK ESCR Network
The article first appeared in the International Union Rights journal, volume 32 issue 2, 2025 and has been republished by the Institute of Employment Rights with the kind permission Daniel Blackburn, Editor of the International Union rights journal and Director of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights.
Background image by Preeti Singh
