(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.
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."
