Workers at the social media company ByteDance, TikTok's parent, are on a one-day strike today in Berlin to protest the replacement of staff with artificial intelligence (AI).
Trade union group ver.di said that around 150 employees will be replaced by Chinese-sourced AI models, which ByteDance trained on behalf of the company and external service providers.
The job cuts include the phasing out of the entire “Trust and Safety” department, responsible for content moderation and keeping the platform safe, and the Live department, which ver.di says is responsible for contact with content producers.
The workers have also tried but failed to get ByteDance to the negotiating table, the union said.
“It is disrespectful of TikTok to shirk all social responsibility and even refuse to negotiate with us,” said Lucas Krentel, ver.di’s deputy regional head of the media division.
“Today, the employees are sending a clear signal that they will not accept this,” he said in a statement.
In a statement to Euronews Next, TikTok said it is in discussion with a works council about a proposal to consolidate their Trust and Safety team "into fewer locations to streamline workflows and improve efficiency".
"We main fully committed to protecting the safety and integrity of our platform as we're investing another $2 billion [€1.7 billion] in Trust and Safety this year," the statement reads.
What are workers asking for?
TikTok’s employees are the first in Germany to strike against a social media company, the union added. It comes after a small group of 50 employees took to the streets last week in Berlin to raise the alarm over the layoffs, local media reported.
The employees are holding a boat tour down the Spree River and will hold a rally on land later on Wednesday.
The workers on strike are asking for a collective bargain that would include a severance package that “recognises the difficult, vital nature of their roles,” such as prolonged exposure to highly distressing content.
That would include severance payments worth three years’ salary along with an extension period of 12 months for each employee.
Germany’s Dismissal Protection Act says that any employee who is being laid off due to urgent reasons should receive 50 per cent of their monthly earnings for each year that the person worked for the company.
The union says the demands are justified because of TikTok’s high profits and the replacement of content moderators by AI devalues their specific training and expertise.
TikTok’s moderators have in-depth knowledge of cultural and political contexts, which they need to identify problematic content. Getting rid of them increases the risk that the platform supports “manipulative campaigns,” the union said.
The Live department workers who reach out to content creators are “crucial for reach, monetisation and community engagement,” the union added.
The union also said that many of the affected employees are not German citizens, so losing their jobs could affect their rights to stay in the country.
If ByteDance does not come to the bargaining table, ver.di says a longer-term strike could come later this month.
Update July 23: This story has been updated with a statement from TikTok.
