Press release: TikTok faces first legal action over unlawful union-busting in London
Social media giant TikTok is facing legal action for threatening its critical safety workers with redundancy just days before they were due to vote on forming a union.
London-based members of TikTok’s ‘trust and safety team’ – which is responsible for removing dangerous, violent and illegal content from the site, a process known as ‘content moderation’ – were told they were facing redundancy on 22 August 2025.
The redundancy order came just seven days before a ballot was due to take place among workers on whether to form a union with the UTAW (United Tech & Allied Workers), a branch of the Communication Workers Union (CWU).
Workers were told that TikTok was carrying out a “restructuring exercise” that would mean all content moderation work for the platform in London would be scrapped. That left hundreds of content moderators who would have been represented by the union branch facing redundancy.
Two moderators, supported by tech justice non-profit Foxglove and UTAW and represented by law firm Leigh Day, have now sent a legal letter to TikTok laying out the terms of a potential legal case on grounds of unlawful detriment and automatic unfair dismissal. TikTok has been given one month to respond.
Union-busting at TikTok London
TikTok’s August announcement that it planned to fire workers from its London Trust and Safety Team marked a 180 reversal of its position in public statements made just two months before.
In June, the company said in a press release that “TikTok’s UK workforce will grow to 3,000 this year with the addition of more than 500 jobs”. Adam Presser, TikTok’s UK Director and Global Head of Operations and Trust and Safety, described the UK as an “important hub for TikTok”, adding that: “What underpins our continued growth is our deep commitment to safety”.
TikTok internal documents from May also demonstrate the company planned for human content moderation to continue in London though to at least the end of 2025. These documents explicitly reference both the complexity and volume of certain categories of moderation that require human judgment for safety and compliance, rather than automated tools.
The legal letter sent on behalf of the two TikTok moderators says they are seeking declarations that the actions of the company, both in placing individuals at notice of redundancy, and making any dismissals, are unlawful. They will also ask the employment tribunal to make orders for their roles to be reinstated, should they be made redundant, as well as compensation for their lost pay.
Working conditions at TikTok London
TikTok’s content moderators have to view extreme, disturbing content, including shocking violence, in order to try to keep the platform safe for its more than 30 million users in the UK, including millions of children.
Moderators work in an extremely high-pressure environment. They must look at thousands of videos each day, often having as little as six seconds to make a decision on whether something should be taken down or stay up.
The working lives of content moderators are ruled by TikTok’s “utilisation rate”. That’s the worker surveillance software that forces them to work faster and penalises them if they don’t move their mouse or interact with the computer screen based on fixed time limits, rather than the specific content on the screen.
Workers say the utilisation rate leaves them feeling their brains are “burned” by the work. Some moderators have painful headaches and vertigo as a result of the work, others report losing their short-term memory, and forgetting the names and faces of close friends.
Worst of all, moderators know that working so fast means they can’t do their job properly: fighting to keep people safe on TikTok.
Workers originally decided to form a union after TikTok made changes to working hours and sick pay that moderators say made life harder for those of them with children.
They also accuse TikTok of making a mistake when calculating tax on their payslips – and then, rather than fix it themselves, forcing moderators to try to resolve the problem with HMRC.
UK TikTok content moderator Julio Miguel Franco said: “TikTok needs to tell the truth. When it says AI can do our job of keeping people safe on TikTok, it knows that’s rubbish. Instead, they want to steal our jobs and send them to other countries where they can pay people less and treat them worse. The end result is TikTok becomes less safe for everyone.
“For content moderators like us, the number one priority will always be keeping people safe on TikTok. Having a union at TikTok makes the Trust and Safety team safer at work, which makes everyone who uses TikTok safer too. That’s why we’re fighting for it.”
Foxglove Head of Legal Stella Caram said: “TikTok’s unlawful plans to sack its entire UK safety workforce show just how little it cares about the wellbeing of its most vulnerable users – including millions of children – and the people trying to keep them safe online.
“In June, TikTok said it was going to hire hundreds more content moderators, then two months later, they fired everyone. What changed? Workers exercised their legal right to try to form a trade union. This is obvious, blatant and unlawful union-busting.
“Foxglove is proud to be supporting these essential safe workers in fighting back against TikTok’s unlawful, anti-safety and anti-worker mass firing. Unless these jobs are restored, we are prepared to see them in the employment tribunal.”
National Officer for Tech Workers, UTAW-CWU John Chadfield said: “At the start of the summer TikTok were putting out press releases about growing headcount in the UK, their biggest European market, and by August – in an effort to squash unionisation – they’ve practically shuttered and outsourced almost the entire Trust and Safety team in London. Jeopardising public safety to union bust is reckless, and attacking workers’ rights in such a flagrant way cannot be ignored.”
Leigh Day Partner Michael Newman said: “TikTok’s safety workers play a valuable role in keeping the internet free from toxic content, and this claim raises important issues about those workers’ ability to have a union keep fighting for safe working conditions on their behalf.”
Notes to editors
For further information please contact Foxglove via press [AT] foxglove.org.uk