The historical efforts of workers for the recognition of various economic, social and cultural rights are primarily focused on the rights related to their work and status. Before the constitution of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labor Organization developed and implemented. a wide range of standards relating to work. As a result of decades of international and national efforts, labor initiatives in many countries, human rights standards have experienced tremendous progress. The achievements of the EU in the domain of social law and justice are particularly impressive. Regardless of the fact that there is no universally accepted and mandatory corpus of social security, EU countries are obliged to respect minimum social rights arising from EU directives. This text provides a brief summary of the international standards relating to the right to work and labor rights, the regulation of these rights in the EU, as well as a brief overview of the situation in this domain in North Macedonia.