In the wake of escalating protests and strike action across Iran since late 2025—amid intensifying state repression and an internet shutdown—two major labour organisations, the Dutch Trade Union Confederation (FNV) and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), have issued separate statements calling for an immediate end to state violence, the release of detained labour activists, and guarantees for independent union organising.
FNV, widely regarded as the largest trade union confederation in the Netherlands, spoke of its “deep solidarity” with Iranian workers, union activists, and social movements, attributing the latest wave of unrest to an “economic and social collapse.” According to the confederation, the crisis has fallen disproportionately on women and children, pushing millions into poverty through the rapid devaluation of the national currency, soaring prices for food and basic necessities, declining wages, rising unemployment, and the expansion of insecure and precarious work.
The Dutch union argues that, rather than pursuing dialogue and adhering to international labour standards, Iranian authorities have moved to securitise the situation: labour protests and collective action are labelled “threats to national security,” union activity is criminalised, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly is curtailed, and instruments of repression—including excessive violence, mass surveillance, arbitrary detention, and judicial harassment—are deployed.
FNV further maintains that “independent unions are effectively banned,” describing this as incompatible with International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. The statement adds that labour activists and defenders of workers’ rights face severe reprisals—among them lengthy prison sentences, torture, and in extreme cases even death sentences—solely for exercising their fundamental rights. FNV calls for an immediate cessation of violence, full respect for human and trade union rights, and the release of all detained union activists. It also urges the ILO, UN human rights mechanisms, and the “international community” to step up pressure and monitoring to ensure fundamental labour rights are upheld.
In its second statement, the IUF—which represents a global network of hundreds of affiliated organisations and millions of members across dozens of countries—offers a starker assessment, arguing that the Iranian government has “doubled down on violent repression” in response to nationwide protests that have intensified since late December. Pointing to the disruption of mobile and network communications, the IUF asserts that video evidence and other documentation indicate a “full-scale massacre,” and speaks of large numbers of protesters being killed in the streets. The federation also warns that many detainees face accelerated judicial proceedings and the risk of severe sentences.
The IUF goes on to criticise the government’s rhetoric and approach, arguing that the authorities do not distinguish between “dissent” and “sedition.” The statement references remarks by President Masoud Pezeshkian, who in December acknowledged that the government had no solution to the crisis, but subsequently shifted from calling for “dialogue” to denouncing demonstrators as “terrorists”—a turn the federation says implicitly legitimises state violence.
A central theme of the IUF text is its dual emphasis on international solidarity and opposition to military intervention. The federation argues that military action will not deliver democracy in Iran, and that genuine solidarity requires rejecting war while simultaneously demanding an immediate halt to state violence. It further calls on unions to pressure governments and intergovernmental bodies to help break the information blackout through multiple communication channels. In the IUF’s view, the voices of Iran’s democratic civil society must be heard, and the country’s political future must be determined not by military power or closed-door conclaves of authoritarian states, but by social forces inside Iran.
Both statements converge on several core points:
they frame protests and strikes as an intelligible response to deepening political and livelihood crises; condemn the securitisation of labour organising; and present independent unionisation, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly not as political concessions, but as fundamental rights of workers and citizens. At the same time, the statements suggest that, for a segment of the international trade union movement, Iran is not merely a domestic crisis, but a test of whether one can resist state repression while also drawing a clear line against war-making projects and externally engineered power arrangements.
Separately, the “Iran Labour Confederation – Abroad,” in an appeal issued on 10 January to trade unions worldwide, warned that the nationwide communications blackout could pave the way for broader and more concealed repression against the ongoing protests in Iran. It stated that workers, teachers, nurses, and retirees have played a prominent role in the demonstrations, and argued that the government’s response constitutes a direct assault on the labour movement as well as on wider civil rights.
The confederation called on unions to publicly condemn killings, arrests, and the internet shutdown; to pressure their own governments to pursue diplomatic measures aimed at halting repression; to support the public’s access to a “free internet”; and to pursue action through international bodies, including the ILO.
