A worker walks past a sign with the Vietnamese Communist Party flag in Hanoi, October 5, 2020.
The Vietnamese government is systematically suppressing the rights of workers to organize independent unions despite trade agreements that require it to support labor rights.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.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) ‒ 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.
October 21, 2026 “There Are No Trade Unions in Vietnam”
Hanoi’s Continuing Assault on Workers’ Right to Organize
Download the full report in English
Download the Summary & Recommendations in Vietnamese
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 organiz
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