TikTok moderators have accused the social media firm of “oppressive and intimidating” union busting after it fired lots of of employees in the UK, starting the course of simply before they have been due to vote on forming a union.
The moderators needed to set up a collective bargaining unit to defend themselves from the private prices of checking excessive and violent content material, and have claimed TikTok is responsible of unfair dismissal and breaching commerce union legal guidelines.
About 400 moderators in London have been fired before Christmas in a course of initiated per week before the vote was due to happen.
TikTok, which has about 30m month-to-month customers in Britain, strongly denies a authorized declare that has been lodged with an employment tribunal on behalf of three former employees, describing it as “baseless”.
It stated the sackings have been a part of a world restructuring involving roles in the UK, and south and south-east Asia amid the rising use of AI to automate the elimination of posts that violate content material guidelines, with 91% of transgressive content material now eliminated routinely.
However John Chadfield, the nationwide officer for tech employees at the Communication Staff Union, which represented about 250 of the affected moderators, stated of the authorized motion: “This is holding TikTok to account for union busting.”
He added: “Content material moderators have the most harmful job on the web. They are uncovered to the little one intercourse abuse materials, executions, struggle and drug use. Their job is to make certain this content material doesn’t attain TikTok’s 30 million month-to-month customers. It is excessive strain and low paid. They needed enter into their workflows and extra say over how they saved the platform secure. They stated they have been being requested to do an excessive amount of with too few assets.”
A TikTok spokesperson stated: “These modifications have been a part of a wider world reorganisation, as we evolve our world working mannequin for belief and security with the good thing about technological developments to proceed maximising security for our customers.”
The dispute started in August 2025, when the union had been poised to poll a number of hundred of TikTok’s moderators and high quality assurance brokers from the belief and security staff, whose job was to vet posts for compliance with TikTok’s guidelines – together with traumatic posts processed at excessive velocity. TikTok introduced a restructuring train that put members of the proposed bargaining unit vulnerable to redundancy, in accordance to the authorized declare.
Rosa Curling, a co-executive director of the tech justice non-profit Foxglove, which is backing the motion, known as TikTok’s therapy of its content material moderators “appalling”.
She stated by “shedding important security employees they are placing the platforms’ customers in danger”, including: “TikTok has made its place clear: union busting and trampling on our labour legal guidelines comes first – the security of its customers, together with hundreds of thousands of kids, and the wellbeing of its important security employees, comes final. We hope the employment tribunal will pressure them to change course.”
In accordance to TikTok, its rising use of AI has diminished moderators’ publicity to graphic content material by 76% in the previous 12 months.
Michael Newman, a accomplice at the legislation agency Leigh Day, stated: “This case is an necessary instance of how people who band collectively can arise to the may of huge tech corporations, and particularly of how the fig leaf of AI value financial savings ought to not be allowed to obscure very important security issues.”
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