Report Says Trump Has Taken “Wrecking Ball” to Labor Rights

The International Trade Union Confederation has issued a report it claims shows that conditions for workers’ rights across the globe are in a “freefall,” and that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a “wrecking ball” to collective labor rights.

According to The Guardian, the 2025 Global Rights Index released June 1 by the International Trade Union Confederation, the largest trade union federation in the world, noted workers’ rights and democracy around the world are often under attack by “far-right politicians and their unelected billionaire backers.” 

“Whether it’s Donald Trump and Elon Musk in the U.S. or Javier Milei and Eduardo Eurnekian in Argentina, we see the same playbook of unfairness and authoritarianism in action around the world,” the ITUC said.

In the U.S., the index cited “the Donald Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to the collective labor rights of workers and brought anti-union billionaires into the heart of policy-making.”

Specifically in the U.S., the ITUC report points to the stripping of union protections from 47,000 workers at the Transportation Security Administration, attempting to revoke civil service protections for large swaths of federal employees, and firing a member of the National Labor Relations Board, leaving it without a quorum.

The Trump administration has also drastically cut staff at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, fired a board member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and issued an executive order revoking collective bargaining rights for the majority of federal employees.

Luc Triangle, secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation, said the report covers events up until March 2025, but these trends have continued to worsen in the U.S. since then.

“In more and more countries, we have elected leaders that, once they are elected democratically, they are taking action against democratic values,” said Triangle. “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.”