The largest trade union organisation in the world, which has around 155 million members, warns that some 10,000 workers were sacked and 1,700 detained over union activity.
The report reveals very disturbing trends, particularly with regard to the rights of women workers, migrant workers and public sector employees.
Belarus, Moldavia and Turkey are cited as countries where independent union activity is being prevented. EU countries are not spared criticism either, with Poland being described as a country where trade unions are being monitored, Germany as a country whose government is refusing to annul a ban on strikes in the public sector, and Malta as a country where unionists receive death threats.
The situation in Croatia is somewhat more favourable than in the previous period, the ICFTU says. The authorities have taken steps to solve property-related problems of trade unions, the organisation says, but objects to inefficient courts and restrictions of the right to strike and prevention of union organising, both by small companies and big domestic and international chains of stores.
Around 80 percent of newly employed workers in Croatia have temporary work contracts and most of them do not want to join trade unions because they are afraid that their contracts will not be prolonged, reads the report.
The report also notes an attempt by the Croatian authorities to ban public assembly in front of the government and parliament headquarters, a decision later prevented by the Constitutional Court, which ruled that it was unconstitutional because it was not adopted with the sufficient number of votes.
As for the rest of the world, the ICFTU says that union activity entails the greatest risk in Latin America, with Columbia being in the lead according to the number of murdered union activists - as many as 70.
Other countries that are cited because of violence and repression against trade unions are Iraq, Iran, El Salvador, Jibuti, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.
Trade unions are still banned in countries of the Arabic-Persian Gulf, while in some other countries, like North Korea, trade unions are under state control.
The report also notes that the administration of George W. Bush is still working to undermine the freedom of organising and collective bargaining in the USA by supporting anti-unionist activity.
The report of the ICFTU, which was established in 1949 and which gathers 236 trade union organisations from 154 countries, was released on the organisation's official web site www.icftu.org.