Press release: UK TikTok hit with second union-busting lawsuit in two months
Social media giant TikTok has been hit with a second lawsuit alleging union-busting and unlawful redundancies in London, just weeks after the launch of a previous lawsuit by its former key safety workers in December.
The second case is brought by four members of TikTok’s Traffic & Ecosystem team who say they were fired as a direct result of organising for a union recognition bid in their team, as well as enthusiastic and highly-visible support for the unionisation push in the London content moderation team. TikTok’s union-busting and mass firing targeted against that union effort is the subject of the previous case launched last month.
Known as Content Quality Analysts (CQA), the main job of the four workers bringing today’s case was to review the work of TikTok’s content moderators who had been outsourced overseas, assess their performance and deliver training. They continued to also do active content moderation themselves, on a reduced basis.
In September 2025, TikTok announced it was creating a new team to replace CQA called ‘AI Data Operations Specialists’ (AIDO) and told all CQAs they should apply to work in the new team. The job description was almost identical to the previous work, except the new roles would have an “AI Element” – even though CQAs were already trained on TikTok’s AI tools and used them regularly as part of their work.
It soon become clear the creation of the AIDO team was, in reality, a covert union-busting scheme. All union members who applied for the new AIDO roles were unsuccessful. All successful applicants were non union members. In October, they announced the remaining 11 members of the CQA team, all union members, would be fired. That redundancy was confirmed on December 1, 2025.
In response, the case launched today by the four former workers alleges TikTok took part in an automatic unfair and unlawful redundancy against them for supporting and engaging in lawful trade union activities.
The workers involved in this case were all loud and proud members of the trade union UTAW at TikTok London and, as is their legal right, enthusiastically supported the union being recognised among their colleagues in the Trust & Safety team.
This included: sharing union communications through Lark, TikTok’s internal messaging platform, wearing union merchandise in the office, changing their profile pictures on Lark to union banners, attending pro-union rallies and sharing photos from them.
This pro-union activity appears to be the motivation behind TikTok’s stealth redundancy exercise.
This case is being supported by tech-justice non-profit Foxglove and the legal counsel is Michael Newman of Leigh Day.
One of the four bringing the case, former TikTok London worker Lynda Ouazar said:
“I gave TikTok my absolute best. I was a top performer in my team. Not only that, I was our Corporate Social Responsibility champion, leading the London offices into the first position anywhere in the world for the number of volunteer events organised for TikTok in 2023. Until that point, I was treated with respect and had never raised a grievance. But when I joined the union, everything changed with how TikTok treated me.
“Instead of being supported, recognised, or involved in solutions, I faced bullying, intimidation, harassment, and retaliation. This didn’t only affect me but other union members as well. It created a culture of fear and concealment in the workplace. They started to say I was problematic, underperforming, difficult to deal with. That’s affected not only my job security, but also my reputation and my mental health too. But they only started to question my performance after I became active in the union.
“There are clear reasons workers need a union at TikTok. Employees face a chronic lack of mental health support despite the distressing nature of the work, extreme targets, salary irregularities and a workplace culture where speaking up carries serious negative consequences.
“TikTok dismissed me unfairly along with other union members purely because we were union members. Our case seeks accountability and justice for the treatment of TikTok workers who speak up and organise. We are determined to push for fair, lawful, and safe working conditions for every worker at TikTok.”
Foxglove Head of Legal Stella Caram said: “TikTok’s company motto is: “inspire creativity and bring joy”. On the evidence of the last two months, a better choice might be: “inspire union-busting and bring lawsuits.”
“Firing workers for supporting or taking part in trade union activity is against the law, no matter what kind of sham recruitment exercise you orchestrate which just-so-happens to result in all the union members losing their jobs.
“Originality has never been Big Tech’s strong suit, and in London, TikTok is aping Mark Zuckerberg’s union-busting playbook seen in Kenya and beyond. You tell everyone you’re going to keep your platform safe with magical AI tools, then fire all your workers when they try to form a union and to intimidate everyone else. We’re proud to be supporting these brave workers to take a stand against these disgraceful union-busting tactics.”
Eleanor Payne from UTAW said: “TikTok workers in London have been unionising for three years and aren’t about to stop.
“TikTok have once again been caught using unlawful redundancy in a futile attempt to stop workers unionising for a stronger voice at work.
TikTok can play union-busting whack-a-mole all they like but, ultimately, it’s a losing game. UTAW members know that by sticking together they’ll win in the end.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
UTAW is a national branch of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) with which workers at TikTok were hoping to have a trade union branch recognised in the London office.
All four workers involved in this case were highly public and visible supporters of a pro-union result in the union recognition ballot due to be held in August 2025 by members of TikTok’s London Trust & Safety team. None were members of the bargaining unit that would have been covered by that ballot.
For all press requests, please contact Foxglove via: press[AT]foxglove.org.uk