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Photo: Dado Ruvic / REUTERS
Employees of the Chinese video platform TikTok who work in Germany are apparently prevented from attempting a works council election. According to SPIEGEL information, executives voted in at the first meeting, and one HR manager even under a false name. The company objected to an application for the appointment of an electoral committee before the labor court: the employees were not suitable for the role. Shortly afterwards, several of them ran into internal problems. One person involved has since left TikTok Germany.
At the beginning of December, the Berlin Labor Court decided to appoint the electoral board - if the company does not proceed against it, the first works council elections could take place with it.
Officially, TikTok says it supports “the right of employees to form a works council”.
Concerns about data protection
In some cases, TikTok Germany employees are concerned about the protection of their personal data.
Among other things, the workforce works with a program called Lark developed by the Chinese parent company Bytedance.
During the pandemic, employees downloaded the Bytedance app Lark onto their personal devices, despite concerns about the many access rights the program requires.
The matter is already part of an official investigation;
the Berlin commissioner for data protection received a complaint about this.
In the meantime, the company has been heard - and the process has been passed on to the responsible EU data protection supervisory authority in Ireland.
TikTok itself is "not known" of a related investigation, according to a spokeswoman.
One "tries" to ensure that employees do not have to load company apps onto their private devices.
Wellbeing and Resilience Programs
Apparently, the mood among the moderators is particularly bad.
Employees spoke to SPIEGEL about a “climate of fear”, also because many of them come from abroad and some of them have visas that are linked to their jobs.
The company expects the moderators to rate around 1000 videos a day, according to employees, the requirements have recently been increased again.
The well-being of employees is very important to TikTok, says the company, "and we are aware that working in the area of content moderation can be a challenge".
That is why they offer “health and psychological care” and access to “programs for well-being and resilience”.
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