The 2025 "Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights” is awarded to Aliaksandr Yarashuk

Aliaksandr Yarashuk (Photo: Salidarnast)

The 2025 “Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights” is awarded to Aliaksandr Yarashuk, who has sacrificed his personal freedom to defend the right to organise, act collectively and conduct trade union work. Yarashuk is President of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP), Vice-President of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and a member of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Governing Body. He has been imprisoned since 2022 for his uncompromising defence of fundamental workers’ rights, human rights and democracy.  

Belarus is considered Europe’s worst country for workers. After the 2020 presidential election, which was clearly fraudulent, the situation deteriorated. There is no freedom of expression nor freedom of association. The independent trade union movement has been banned, and workers who oppose the regime are met with dismissal, harassment, police violence, arbitrary detention, torture and “disappearances”. This is part of the regime's scheme to eliminate the independent trade union movement.  

As a strategy to defend trade union independence in Belarus, Yarashuk and his colleagues initiated a complaint to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association in 2002. The Belarusian government failed to make progress on implementation of conventions and failed to respond to ILO’s Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations. The independent trade union argued that the ILO had to invoke Article 33 of its Constitution, and in 2023 they succeeded. For the second time in history, the ILO adopted a resolution under Article 33, which allows member states to impose severe sanctions against the regime in Belarus.  

In the spring of 2022, Yarashuk publicly protested Belarus’s participation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Following this statement, the union office and his home were searched, and electronic equipment confiscated. Yarashuk was arrested and placed in custody charged of “group actions grossly violating public order”. In November 2022, new charges were brought against Yarashuk for his calls for sanctions against Belarus, and he was sentenced to four years in prison for “threats to national security”. On April 21, 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs added the political prisoners to the “list of extremists”.  

In 2021, the independent trade union movement of Belarus, represented by the BKDP and its affiliated unions, were awarded the “Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights” for their fearless struggle for democracy and fundamental trade union rights. In 2022, the independent trade union movement was banned and many unionists, such as Yarashuk and his colleagues, were imprisoned or had to flee the country.  

The Belarusian government has escalated repression against independent trade unions and their members, but Yarashuk refuses to be intimidated and silenced. He refuses to give in, even though his life is at stake. The regime is punishing him for his courage and wants to isolate him from participating in ILO and other arenas where he can call for fundamental rights. 

The committee wants to honour Yarashuk’s resolution and long-standing fight for trade union rights by awarding him the 2025 “Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights”.