Received from: CWU
Congress notes with grave concern the recent announcement of mass redundancies of approximately 500 London-based content moderator employees, in the TikTok Trust and Safety team. In proposing to sack half of their workforce, the global social media giant has threatened the livelihoods of those who helped them achieve such immense profit and market dominance.
Congress notes that TikTok plans to replace these workers with offshore jobs and artificial intelligence-based moderation systems, endangering the safety of their platform and undermining their UK workforce.
This is a cynical attempt to union-bust and endanger online safety, as the CWU’s national tech branch, UTAW, has been organising TikTok moderators since November last year. Widespread media coverage and whistleblower reports indicate that TikTok senior management timed the redundancies to thwart the union recognition ballot, which was set to begin on 29 August.
Tech giants like TikTok cannot be allowed to act with impunity, thwart union efforts to organise within the tech sector and threaten the safety of our online spaces, in the name of profit.
Congress calls on the TUC to lobby the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology and the Labour government for an investigation into this union busting, for concrete action on preventing the offshoring of UK moderation/online safety jobs and legislation that prevents human content moderators being replaced with AI.
Mover: Communication Workers Union
Seconder: USDAW