The Iran Labore Confederation – Abroad is publishing its analytical report on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s FY 2026/27 (Iranian year 1405) budget bill (March 21, 2026–March 20, 2027). The report assesses the bill’s economic, livelihood, and social consequences from the standpoint of the labor force’s interests, and demonstrates that the policies embedded in it will, structurally, intensify wage poverty, deepen job insecurity, and weaken fundamental labor rights.
The FY 2026/27 budget bill is built around nominal and inadequate wage increases, the continuation of contractionary policies, and the transfer of the costs of the state’s fiscal crisis onto workers, wage earners, and retirees. A 20% wage increase under high inflation translates into a real decline in purchasing power and the entrenchment of poverty across the majority of the country’s labor force. This is not a miscalculation. It is a deliberate choice aimed at disciplining labor and containing social discontent.
Although the wages of workers covered by Iran’s Labor Law are not set directly in the budget bill, Iran’s real wage-setting structure—through a non-independent Supreme Labour Council—means that workers’ wage increases in practice become dependent on the figures established in the budget. In this way, wage suppression is effectively extended across the entire labor force.
The report also addresses the persistence and deepening of systematic labor-rights violations, including the absence of workplace safety, the expansion of child labor, discrimination against women workers, the extreme vulnerability of migrant workers—especially Afghan workers—and the deprivation of labor’s rights to independent organization, strike action, and collective bargaining. This situation stands in clear contradiction to fundamental labor standards and international obligations, particularly ILO Conventions No. 87 and No. 98.
These violations unfold in an environment where independent labor organizing, freedom of expression, and access to legal redress inside the country are systematically repressed, and any effort to defend occupational and sectoral rights is met with security pressure.
The Iran Labor Confederation – Abroad is releasing this report as part of its ongoing effort to document the ruling anti-worker policies and to strengthen international solidarity and coordinated action in defense of labor rights in Iran. The report has also been sent—together with a formal letter—to independent unions, federations, and labor networks internationally.
Download the full report and its analytical appendix via the link below:
