Vietnam: Independent Trade Unions Suppressed
Hostility to Labor Rights Undercuts Claims of Reform
HRW | October 21, 2026
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The Vietnamese government is systematically suppressing the rights of
workers to organize independent unions despite trade agreements that require
it to support labor rights.
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Officials have repeatedly made false, misleading, and deceptive claims about
supporting independent unions while making clear that they would target
anyone who tried to exercise labor rights. The government routinely used
criminal laws to prosecute rights activists.
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Vietnam’s government needs to carry out reforms it pledged to implement. Its
trading partners need to face reality and make clear to the government that
its broken pledges on labor rights will carry consequences.
(New York, October 21, 2026) ‒ The Vietnamese government
is systematically suppressing the rights of workers to organize independent
unions, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Despite pledges to
trading partners in several free trade agreements, the government has failed to
put in place meaningful reforms to enable trade unions to form and operate
freely, and it routinely represses independent labor organizing.
The 49-page report, “There
Are No Independent Trade Unions in Vietnam: Hanoi’s Continuing Assault on
Workers’ Right to Organize,” documents the Vietnamese governments’
continuing use of vague, overbroad criminal laws to suppress the activities of
human rights and labor rights defenders, while maintaining an atmosphere of
repression to thwart independent labor organizing. The government has issued
decrees and articles in state-run media that reaffirm that all labor
organizations in Vietnam are under the government’s authority, and portray
independent trade unions as dangerous, anti-state entities.
“Officials in Hanoi have repeatedly made false, misleading, and deceptive claims
about labor rights, while lauding Vietnam’s supposed reforms to suggest they
allow unions to form,” said John
Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “In reality, the
Vietnamese government remains deeply hostile to the very idea of independent
trade unions, which is why none exist.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 30 workers, human rights organizers,
labor rights and legal experts, and others familiar with the labor rights
situation in Vietnam. It also analyzed Vietnamese laws and regulations and
reviewed articles about labor issues in Vietnamese state-run media.
Vietnamese officials have repeatedly stated publicly that legal reforms in 2021
allow workers to organize and that Vietnam has thousands of “grassroots” trade
unions. These claims have primarily been directed at trading partners in the
context of various economic agreements. They include the 2020 European
Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA),
later agreements with the United
Kingdom and European
Free Trade Association, and the 2019 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement
for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP),
which includes Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico,
among other countries.
These agreements obligated Vietnam to undertake reforms that would allow
independent trade unions to exist. In 2021, the government made some legislative
changes that purportedly authorized the creation of independent “worker
organizations,” but subsequently failed to create any regulatory framework that
would allow workers to form them.
The only legal mechanisms that Vietnamese workers can utilize to address labor
rights concerns exist within entities, or so-called “trade unions,” set up under
the authority of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL). Under
Vietnamese law, the confederation and its sub-units explicitly fall under the
control of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam. Party officials choose or
approve leaders at every level, and the government provides their budget, which
is funded by mandatory fees paid by employers and workers. These worker entities
do not meet legal criteria under international law to be considered independent
trade unions, Human Rights Watch said.
While VGCL entities sometimes engage in activities ostensibly addressing labor
issues, their efforts are limited and do not genuinely represent the workers,
and they ultimately act in the interests of the Communist Party. None of these
entities has ever called for a strike or led any confrontational activities
against employers.
“A union has to have its own freedom, and freedom to grow,” one exiled labor
organizer told Human Rights Watch. “But the party remains the leadership of all
things in Vietnam.”
Even if independent worker entities could form in Vietnam, existing provisions
of Vietnamese labor laws do not meet international standards and are inadequate
to protect labor rights, Human Rights Watch said.
The government’s intolerance for independent trade unions has harmed other labor
rights of Vietnamese workers, Human Rights Watch said. Without the freedom to
form independent unions, workers in Vietnam are less able to bargain effectively
or seek higher wages, better working conditions, or remedies or redress for
individual and collective work-related grievances.
Workers said that even if the government adopted procedures to allow independent
labor organizations to form, authorities would misuse provisions in Vietnam’s
penal code to target organizers. The government has long used criminal laws to
prosecute labor rights and human rights activists and suppress the creation of
independent organizations.
For decades, the authorities have imprisoned prominent independent journalists,
bloggers, and activists, several of whom have advocated labor rights. At any
given time in the last 10 years, Vietnam had in detention at least 150 to 180
political prisoners, either awaiting trial or imprisoned after unfair
convictions. Repression has increased more recently: in 2025 and 2026 alone, the
authorities have jailed over 50 dissidents.
Authorities have specifically targeted human rights defenders and labor
organizers who raised rights issues in the context of the 2021 trade agreement
with the EU, and even jailed some of its own officials involved in negotiations
with the EU on labor rights issues.
Numerous Vietnamese-language statements and articles by officials reveal the
negative views and deep hostility of the authorities toward independent trade
unions. Officials cited in government-controlled media outlets portray
independent trade unions as “reactionary” forces opposed to the Communist Party,
engaged in “subversive” and “sinister” plots to undermine and sabotage the
government,” with the “true objective” of undermining government-controlled
unions, “confronting the State,” and “sowing social instability.” The heading
over one such article is “Crime Warnings.”
The Vietnamese government should ratify and put into effect all relevant
International Labour Organisation treaties without delay and set a clear
timeline for when it will allow genuinely independent trade unions to form,
Human Rights Watch said. Vietnam’s trading partners should press the government
to meet these commitments and release all human rights and labor rights
activists imprisoned for exercising their right to free expression.
“Many of Vietnam’s trading partners have accepted Hanoi’s claims of reform
without scrutiny, and some still contend that trade agreements have improved
Vietnam’s rights record,” Sifton said. “Vietnam’s trading partners need to face
reality and make clear to the government that its broken pledges on labor rights
carry consequences.”
“There Are No Trade Unions in Vietnam: Hanoi’s Continuing Assault on Workers’
Right to Organize,” is available at:
https://www.hrw.org/node/394422
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Vietnam, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/asia/vietnam
For more information, please contact:
In New York, John Sifton (English): +1-646-479-2499 (mobile); or siftonj@hrw.org.
In New York, Patricia
Gossman (English): +1-347-322-8638 (WhatsApp); or gossmap@hrw.org.
In Brussels, Claudio Francavilla (English, Italian): +1-347-931-3644 (mobile);
or francac@hrw.org.
X: @ClaFrancavilla
In London, Elaine Pearson (English): +1-646-291-7169 (mobile); or pearsoe@hrw.org.
X: @pearsonelaine