How Labour Can Govern For Working People

Paul Nowak, General Secretary, TUC

By Paul Nowak, TUC General Secretary

The trade union movement will work with Keir Starmer to deliver change.

What an extraordinary moment in British politics. Labour back in power with a near-record majority. The Conservatives brutally ejected from office. A dozen cabinet members gone. A red wave in Scotland at the SNP’s expense. But while it’s easy to get carried away by the seismic nature of this election – we cannot afford to be distracted. We have a country to fix.

When I congratulated Keir Starmer my message to him was clear. The trade union movement stands ready to work with the new government to repair and rebuild Britain – and to deliver the change working people desperately need. After 14 years of wretched Tory rule and chaos, I am not blind to the size of the task this incoming government faces.

The Conservatives have left behind a trail of destruction for all to see. Stagnant growth and wages. Rising in-work poverty. Broken public services. The charge sheet goes on and on. But despite all of the damage wrought, I am optimistic. After nearly a decade and a half in opposition, Labour can finally begin transforming the country – an urgent and necessary challenge that must be grasped with both hands. So where should we start?

First and foremost, we need to get our economy growing again. Unions and business have been crying out for years for a proper industrial strategy. The Green Prosperity Plan starts us on the road to economic recovery. And it will be a breath of fresh air to work with ministers who are actually serious about protecting and creating good jobs, and boosting skills and productivity.

But securing growth alone is not enough – we also need better living standards. Labour needs to act urgently to make work pay. We currently have over four million people who are trapped in jobs that offer little or no financial security. This is a national disgrace. The UK’s long experiment with a low-wage, low-rights economy has been terrible for productivity and workers alike. Labour’s New Deal For Working People – delivered in full – will help end the Tories’ race to the bottom on employment standards.

A race to the bottom that has allowed good employers to be undercut by the bad, and scandals like the illegal sacking of 800 seafarers at P&O Ferries go unpunished. Labour’s plans will be a genuine game-changer. Employment rights from day one. A ban on zero-hours contracts. An end to fire and rehire. New rights for unions to access the workplace. And the scrapping of anti-union legislation.

These are all part of a comprehensive new package of rights that will be good for workers, good for businesses and good for the UK economy. Inevitably there will be some siren voices in the business community who will seek to delay and water down this legislation. But it is vital Labour stays the course and ignores the doomsayers. All the tired arguments that have been made against improved rights and protections at work echo those used against the minimum wage – now widely acknowledged to be one of the great policy successes of the last 25 years.

The naysayers were wrong then and they are wrong now. It is also vital that immediate work begins on repairing our crumbling public realm. At the heart of the pressures on our schools, hospitals, prisons and social care system is a huge workforce crisis. Across the NHS and social care alone there are nearly 300,000 staffing vacancies and in education the number of teaching vacancies has more than doubled in the past three years.

With morale at rock bottom – after more than a decade of Tory vandalism and neglect – Labour has the chance to signal a new direction of travel. We’ve already seen really encouraging commitments on scrapping tax breaks for private schools to fund new teachers in the state sector, and on closing non-dom loopholes to help bring down waiting lists. It’s no secret though that I want the party to go further and that we explore all funding options for rebuilding our public services.

The TUC has previously called for a national conversation on taxing wealth and I remain convinced that policies like equalising Capital Gains Tax with the taxes paid on earnings could bring in much-needed revenues. People voted in this election because they wanted real change – and Reform’s populist insurgence is a timely warning of what happens when governments fail to act.

And this question of delivery is the crux of the matter. After 14 years of national decline the country has finally got the Labour government it desperately needs. I know how ambitious Keir Starmer and his team are to improve working people’s lives, and the trade union movement wants to work with them. Of course there will be moments of tension. That comes with being a critical friend. Our job is to speak up for working people and our members and to make sure their voices are heard at the heart of government – even when the message is difficult.

But the prospect of national renewal is real. Decent jobs, strong public services, a brighter, fairer future for all our children. The work will be hard and it starts today – but together we can realise a better future.

Originally posted on www.newstatesman.com

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UPDATED : Talks On Investment & Jobs Begin At Port Talbot

The UK steel industry stands on the precipice after Tata Steel announced plans earlier this year to close the blast furnaces at the Port Talbot steel works in July and September 2024, ceasing iron production and decimating what remains of one of the key areas of the UK’s industrial base.
At a time of rising global tensions and fears over security, Unite has said it will not stand by and watch the destruction of another key component of our critical national manufacturing infrastructure, while at the same time increasing our reliance on steel imports.
Unite says that in the coming years there will be a tenfold increase in demand for ‘green’ steel – steel manufactured using electric furnaces.
Unite has produced detailed plans which would result in the creation of jobs and make the UK the European capital of a profitable green steel industry. If adopted this plan would secure this critical industry for generations to come and reduce the UK’s over reliance on imports in what has become an uncertain world. You can’t deliver growth without steel.
The Tata announcement to end virgin steel production at Port Talbot with ‘blast furnace five’ closing this month and ‘blast furnace four’ closing in September, will result In a loss of 2,800 hihhly skilled and well paid employment.
jobs.
Unite’s says that during discussions with the Labour Party the union had secured a commitment that an the expected Labour government would provide £2.5 billion extra investment for UK steel.
Unite and other steel making unions (GMB and Community) asked Tata to wait until the change of government before making any final decision on the future of its blast furnaces and steel production.
Tata has refused to do this and on 31st May it wrote to its employees stating: “Neither the general election nor its outcome has any impact on the timings or our decision to proceed with the winding down of our heavy-end operations (blast furnaces).”
Given Tata’s stance Unite says it had no option but to exercise its mandate for industrial action and begin an overtime ban and announce strike action for next month. When announcing strike action Unite made it clear to Tata that we would ensure that all safety procedures would be met.
Unite says it has repeatedly requested that the company commit to not making any final decisions about the future of the blast furnaces until after the election when meaningful negotiations can be held. The only negotiations Tata want to have is to sell the jobs via redundancy packages. This is not acceptable.
Instead of waiting for a predicted change of Government, Tata has decided to double down, making continued threats to try and stop industrial action on “trumped up technicalities”. If they are successful, Unite says it will re-ballot for industrial action and will continue to do everything in its power to save jobs and fight to stop the destruction of this part of of the UKs critical infrastructure.
Unite has demanded that it waits wait until we have a change of government this week and not make any irreversible decisions and for Tata to enter into meaningful negotiations. Unite says this is the only demand it is making at this point.
Unite says it then can meet with government, other unions and Tata, to negotiate investment in jobs rather than abandoning the steel workers in Wales.

Update: On Sunday afternoon Tata Steel wrote to the steel unions offering to meet unions for fresh talks on the condition strike action in South Wales is called off.

Talks Begin: Talks have now began on investment and jobs and Tata is believed to have offered to discuss future investment in Port Talbot in exchange for unions suspending  future industrial action.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “There is along way to go. They suspend closure, we suspend action.”

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Labour: Implementing The TUC’s AI Bill Is A No Brainer

The Institute Of Employment Rights booklets have for years provided an authoritative analysis of employment rights issues and in some instances have pointed the way forward and helped draft future employment legislation.

IERs new ‘Algorithmic Management And A  New Generation Of Rights At Work’, written by Dr Joe Atkinson (University of Southampton) and Professor Philippa Collins (University of Bristol) is one such booklet that all incoming Labour MPs should read along with the TUC’s draft ‘Artificial Intelligence (Employment and Regulation) Bill’. 

How AI will effect workers has been much talked about. A low point was Sunak’s ‘AI Summit’ at Bletchley Park to which unions were not invited and ended as little more than photo opportunity for Sunak to smooze with Elon Musk.

I have no doubt there will be many benefits for working people and society from the use of AI, but one of its biggest drawbacks is AI’s potential for intrusiveness coupled with the ability to produce in nono-seconds what it would take humans to do in hours.

As Unite National Officer for the Media Louisa Bull  (one of the areas where there will be a big downside to the use of AI could be in the media) and where the union is busy organising digital and tech workers told the global union Union Network International: “It is never acceptable to pass off responsibility for key decisions to non-human agents and yet that is happening”.

The authors rightly point out that: “Technology has revolutionised the way we work over the last 30 years, and is now changing radically the way in which working people are managed. 

“Rapid advances in ‘artificial intelligence’ have given rise to complex and powerful algorithmic management tools that pose an increasing threat to the right of workers to enjoy decent working conditions and exercise agency over their working lives.”

Although the Labour manifesto has a reference to “updating regulations to outlaw the use of predictive technologies for blacklisting and safeguard against the singling out of workers for mistreatment or the sack without any evidence of human interaction” overall the current outdated employment protections will just not be enough to provide the protections workers will need. 

As the authors point out – with collective bargaining in the UK at low levels – for millions of people protection will not be available to those engaged in business models that exploit workers.

They correctly contend that what is needed is: “a new regulatory framework giving workers and unions a genuine voice in the use of algorithmic management tools, alongside recognition and protection of their rights and access to justice that ensures their employers can be held to account”.

Without widespread sectoral collective bargaining a new frame work of protection for non-human interventions and decisions underpinned by law, not a toothless code of practice – is now essential. 

Coupled with the TUC’s recent work, this LRD booklet sets out the way forward. A Labour government needs to agree wider employment protections in consultation with those unions already in at the deep end and have members working and organising in digital and tech companies such as Unite, Prospect, Equity, NUJ, CWU along with the TUC to implement the TUCs ‘Artificial Intelligence (Employment and Regulation) Bill’ as first step. 

For Labour the spade work already done – coupled with the research by Atkinson and Collins’ work – its a no brainer.

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Down, But Not Out

Julian Vaughan, a great trade unionist on his quest to become the first working trading driver to sit in the House of Commons in 50 years.

After standing as a Labour candidate in the last two General Elections, when you are offered a candidacy in one of the safest Tory seats in the UK, it dawns on you rather quickly that your face just doesn’t fit and it is time to move on.

So, after politely declining the opportunity to stand as a candidate, and with the freedom of someone who believes his time in politics is up, I am writing this from the perspective of a ‘critical friend’ who has been silent for too long on issues that matter to him, but who desperately wants a Labour government. I write this with sadness rather than bitterness that I will not be a candidate in the General Election announced yesterday.

Some have said that I have been treated quite shabbily, and I have to say that I do not disagree. 

However, I would rather look to the future rather than dwell on the past. As a candidate and a campaigner, I have displayed the ability to work across political divides, bring people together as an effective team and lead by example. I will use these qualities, as well as my relentless determination, in whatever direction I decide to go next.

As a Labour supporter since the 1980’s, it was the miners’ strike that first politicised me. I am desperate for a Labour government, after 14 years of Tory rule have trashed our public services, shredded our reputation around the world, and further diminished trust in our politicians and politics itself.

Tragedies such as Grenfell and scandals such as Windrush and the Post Office’s treatment of sub-postmasters have shown that there is a deep-seated imbalance of power between the state and the people. 

A Hillsborough Law must just be the start of the fundamental change needed.

The UK needs far more than just a change in the management team. I would urge the Labour Party to place empathy, compassion and indeed love at the heart of its offering to the country. Labour must of course be pro-business, but I would add a small caveat. Labour must be pro-ethical business. Grenfell showed us what happens when a naked pursuit of profit is put ahead of people.

We need more working-class representation in Parliament.

If I had been elected in the upcoming General Election, I would have been the first train driver to be sitting in the House of Commons for over 50 years. We need people who understand the lives of ordinary working people, MPs who have worn a hi-vis as part of their job, not just for a photo opportunity.

If we continue to draw the majority of our MPs from the corporate world, it is little wonder that there is a ready acceptance of the narratives peddled by corporate lobbyists and policies that favour big business over ordinary people.

I have met some amazing people since first standing for Parliament and made many friends in the Labour movement. I hope we will remain friends. 

Thank you to ASLEF and other unions for their support. Unions are a force for good in the country. Labour must treat them as such – they will need steadfast friends in what is likely to be a turbulent time ahead. 

A special thanks to both those who have supported me and also those who have challenged me.

Finally, a thank you to my family. I chose to enter politics they did not, but are impacted by that decision just as much as I am.

My desire for social justice will never be dimmed. I will continue to hold power to account and will always be a champion of the vulnerable in our society. I look forward to working with a future Labour government and helping bring about a better Britain for all.

Editors Comment: Julian Vaughan is a hard working skilled train driver, a trade unionist,  a good friend and comrade. After working hard with trade unions he had the support of six Labour Party affiliated trade unions to stand for parliament.

Like many trade unionists he is concerned that the voice and views of experienced trade unionists has been largely ignored within the Labour Party during the selection process.

When the going gets tough for the Party hopefully in power (and it will) they will need the support of working people and trade unionists to stand with them, no matter how big the majority.

As can be seen by his blog, he is loyal and trusted comrade and I am proud to have worked with him to become the first rain driver to sit in the House Of Commons in 50 years.

Twitter/X: @julian_vaughan_

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/jpvaughan66

Web: https://www.julianvaughan.com/

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Getir Gets Out As Race To The Bottom Continues

Turkish rapid food-tech delivery company Getir valued at $12bn in 2022 has pulled the plug on its UK and US operations, as well as its remaining European operations after it burned up cash as orders plummeted.

Launched in the middle of the pandemic in September 2021 with promotional offers that were too good to be trues (and they were) Getir went the same way as other gig economy rapid delivery services such as Jiffy, Bother, Oja and Gorillas (which had been bought by Getir). 

Getir who promised a 10-minute delivery eventually hiked prices as funding streams were burned through and dried up as post pandemic customers started eating out or buying in food.

Tech start-ups are reliant on continuous cash flow and investors  cash injections – Uber Eats made its first operating profit last year, having been founded in 2009, equating to  14 years of losses.

Getir created ‘dark stores’ (fulfilment centres with groceries and household essentials) and market leaders Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats stole Getir’s lunch by offering grocery deliveries with lower overheads in addition to their existing restaurant service while Ocado ramped up its same-day service with its Zoom based service. 

A company statement says: “Getir has raised a new investment round, led by Mubadala and G Squared. Getir will utilise these funds to bolster its competitive position in its core food and grocery delivery businesses in Turkey.” 

Clearly, Getir’s investors were unwilling to see good money thrown after bad.

Getir paid drivers by the hour – others in rapid food delivery pay them by delivery. The gig economy is a cut throat, race to the bottom world based on low pay and precarious work.

The need for an incoming Labour Government to introduce proper Government regulation on pay and working conditions decent employment rights. The need to regulate and protect workers from exploitation has never been starker.

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MediaNorth Condemns Banning Of Al Jazeera by Israeli Government.

The Israeli government voted on Sunday 5th May to shut down the operations of Al Jazeera, one of the last remaining international media networks reporting from the war-ravaged Gaza strip.

As a result, Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel were closed, broadcast equipment confiscate, the channel cut off from cable and satellite companies and its websites blocked.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Al Jazeera reporters had ‘harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers’, and referred to the outlet as a ‘Hamas mouthpiece’.

Al Jazeera rightly decried the decision and said the accusation that it threatened Israeli security was a ‘dangerous and ridiculous lie’  and was part of Israel’s ‘ongoing suppression of the free press’.

This action by the Israeli government takes place as the Israeli forces begin the forced evacuation of people from Rafah as a prelude to a military assault on the densely packed population there.

In the Spring issue of MediaNorth our front page was on the efforts of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to control critical coverage of the death and destruction by Israel in Gaza. This is their latest action and we strongly condemn it.

Granville Williamms editor MediaNorth

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Mexican General Election – Why The Election Is Crucial For Latin America

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UK exports to EU down by £10.7bn – more Brexit turmoil expected

The UK’s official trade figures for Q4 2023 reveal the UK’s goods exports to the EU slumped from £196.7bn in 2022 to £186bn last year. The revised figures reveal that the UK’s exports of goods to the EU slumped as companies trying to trade with the EU find being outside of the trading bloc problematic and are about to get worse as the temporary trading arrangements designed to hide the catastrophe of Brexit begin to expire.

New Border Target Operating Model (BTOM), phased in from January this year, introduces compulsory health certificates for many food and plant products from the EU that have not previously required paperwork.

These latest figures reveal Britain’s goods exports to the EU have gone backwards since 2022. Claims that quitting the EU would free up the UK to achieve new export success in other international markets have proved to be incorrect. The revised figures reveal the UK’s total exports to the world (including EU exports) fell from £424.4bn in 2022 to £394.7bn in 2023, a collapse of £29.7bn.

Only Britain’s exports to the US kept these revised figures from being even more disappointing and trade deal predicted as just around the corner looks further away than ever.

Brexit secretary David Davis’ predicted that “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside” and the the Government’s document “The Benefits of Business” declared: “The Government will cut £1 billion of business costs from retained EU red tape.”

Former PM Boris Johnson wrote that the UK would: “seize the incredible opportunities that our freedom presents and use them to build back better than ever before – making our businesses more competitive and our people more prosperous, untangling ourselves from 40 years of EU membership, keeping what works, changing what doesn’t, supporting new industries, reinvigorating older ones and firmly planting the British flag on the world stage once again.”

The continuing disaster that is Brexit will be an issue an incoming Labour Government will have to tackle. And they will have to appoint a trade minister who knows what he or she is doing. No doubt any attempts to sort out the mess left by Frost, Johnson etc will be met with open hostility by the right wing media – that goes with the territory, but out of power apart from the hard line Brextremist’s many Tories will keep the disaster of Brexit at arms length.

The approach by the EU on the question of young people being able to travel and work in Europe whilst welcome was badly handled by the EU. They should have left it until after the election and made the offer. Labour knew the reaction they would get so put it into the long grass.

It’s going to be a long and rocky road back to a decent working relationship with the EU.

There is also the question: Will the EU ever want us back? Rejoining the single market and customs union won’t be a walk in the park. Even applying to join EFTA may be problematic. Whoever is the new trade minster will have to also sort out the crap deals with Australia and NZ, the CTPPT deal which will be taken over by China and the Mickey Mouse deals with individual US states. And doing a deal with the USA will still be along way off. Serious candidates only please….

 

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AI: Threats & Opportunities For The Media

Festival Of Debate, 2024.

Louisa Bull, National Officer Graphical, Paper, Media & IT Sector. Unite The Union : AI: Threats & Opportunities For The Media April 25th, 2024I  know other speakers are going to deal much more eloquently with the more high profile dangers we are presently seeing within our creative industries and in particular within news and media sector, with the explosion in generative AI and software programmes such as ChatGPT.  So I am not covering any of that although I did want to acknowledge some of the wins our sister unions are having in the US right now, the actors and writers in particular, who have been defending their right to keep the rights  on their own voice and their physical identity.  They must be congratulated in taking action and winning these fights.

I have worked in our industry since the early 80s and technological change has always been there.  But back then it was introduced through consultation and long negotiation with the trade unions.

So why is it different now and why in this digital age have we failed to secure regulation, retain control, and protect human labour when AI and algorithmic management has become normal in the workplace.

I guess it doesn’t matter where you work, whether it be a large publishing house or a small tech start up, your employer will have introduced processes “to make your life easier” and asked you to add some apps to your personal phone so that you can access the HR functions and book holidays, see pay slips etc.  But in signing up to this, and most people don’t have a choice then it will be the same as signing up to google or facebook , someone else will be collecting your data, they may be selling it on to a third party and they may be mining what you are doing 24/7.  

This is just one example, but we all walk around daily, not turning these apps off on our mobile phones and someone is harvesting what we do, where we go and to a point what we engage with.  We have become small mobile AI labs and we don’t know who is monitoring that.

What we can’t do at the moment with any authority is to demand from our employer what they have done with that data.  Under current legislation the right to bargain over that data does not exist.

My work in Unite has given me the opportunity to sit on the TUC AI working group for the last few years and to work with sister unions to create the TUC agenda to provide the tools and knowledge to our union officers and reps to ensure where automation exists it must be subject to consultation, negotiation and transparency and governed by human ethics including being free from discriminatory bias.  A great agenda but so far without any teeth.

So earlier this month the TUC launched its draft AI and Employment Bill, a Bill , that is ready to go, if picked up by the next government,  and it would regulate how employers used  AI at work in relation to our rights as workers and to ensure our interests would be protected in the work place.  

So why is algorithmic management so dangerous.  Well code is only as good as the person who wrote it and if the creator of the algorithms has themselves some bias albeit perhaps even unconscious bias then the outcomes will be floored.   Anyone who has recently applied for a job in any industry but in press or media for sure it will have be done online and it is at this very early stage an algorithm will decide whether you get through to the next stage or not.  

Many workers who apply for internal promotion are faced with the same online software and that software is what decides if you are the best fit.  But we don’t know what the code is looking for, we can’t tell what bias has been written into it and importantly there is no one to ask, as there has been no human intervention so far into the process.  You may not have been looking for a new job recently,  but a bank loan a mortgage or any thing else done online, will be done by an AI tool in the same way and not by a human being.

Algorithms should advise, and humans should decide, it is that simple and the AI bill make this an absolute requirement in the workplace.

The other main are of concern is the widespread monitoring and analysis of workers,  whether that be assessing the amount of  keyboard strokes for a staff worker or managing productivity output of a warehouse operative, it is being done systematically by employers and behind the backs of our members.  This results in increased demand in productivity or an analysis on how many staff roles can be removed from the business.  Our industry is constantly fighting off redundancies, be it in national newspaper companies like Reach or Publishing houses like OUP they are becoming common place.

 More robotics, automation and now generative AI puts jobs at risk and without us, the trade unions,  controlling the narrative then we are all in danger of just watching from the sidelines. 

The TUC Bill calls for data impact assessments to be conducted in the workplace, so that workers have a statutory right to bargain on these changes and understand the consequential effects on tasks and roles.  We do not believe jobs per say will always be replaced but repetitive tasks, language checking, graphic design and audio transfer are some areas already impacted by the technology.  

If technology is going to be embraced and our industry has been embracing it for a long time, then we must be advantaged by the changes.  We can’t no longer let the technology control us.  The call for workers to have the right to disconnect from work has been written into legislation in France and we need that is ourt contracts and collective agreements in the UK.  Switching off the mobile phone, not looking at the email can be had so employers have a duty to switch it off at the mains and lead by example.

Finally, the AI digital divide is an offshoot of the broader digital divide – the chasm separating those with access to information and communication technology (ICT) and those without. Access to AI technologies necessitates basic digital infrastructure, including internet connectivity and digital literacy. However, many global regions, particularly developing countries and rural areas, lack this essential infrastructure, which limits their capacity to exploit AI advancements. Even with technology access, digital literacy remains crucial. The competence to utilise and understand AI technologies is as vital as physical access, emphasising the need for digital education and training, particularly for marginalised communities.  

For our press & media to continue to flourish on whatever platform, we still need to skill up each new generation and not allow the technology to dumb down what we hear, what we read and what we watch.

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US Ban On TikTok: Could The UK Be Dragged Into A Trade War?

Buried deep in the US Senate’s foreign aid support package for Ukraine is a fast track provision to ban the Chinese social media platform TikTok unless it is sold by its Chinese owners ByteDance to a US-approved buyer, something ByteDance have said they will not do.

The US government says is concerned TikTok could share data about its US users with the Chinese Government and if any US ban goes ahead and a deal not struck it could spread to the UK as the USA (spurred on by Republicans and many Democrats will undoubtedly pressures allies to follow suit.

With the UK tied closer than ever to the USA following Brexit the result could be a spill over trade battle with China. It is problem an incoming Labour Government will have to deal with.

The US was the largest of all UK export markets in 2023. For the four quarters to September 2023, UK exports of goods and services to the US were worth £193.1bn – that’s 21.9% of all UK exports.

TikTok is very popular with young people in the USA and UK  and is a big source of revenue for small  retailers in both countries.

UK TikTok users spend more time on the social media platform than any other country in the world, with 1 in 2 UK users saying they frequently purchase products to be found on TikTok.

Globally, 58% of TikTok users find new brands and products on the app – 14% more than on any other platform. 61% of all users have made a purchase either directly on TikTok or online immediately after seeing an ad on the app.

New start-ups among online retailers use TikTok to communicate directly with customers and use short videos and creator content to promote their products.

TikTok has 170 million US users and well over 23 million in the UK. Over 40% of UK TikTok users are aged 18-24 years old.

However, the fact is that many of the chips in our mobile phones, cars and the devices used every day are made in China and have not faced such a ban.

TikTok has nine months to find new owners before a ban is imposed – but it could be years before the app is blocked in the US, as TikTok’s owners may well bring legal action which could reach the US Supreme Court. Any ban would have to be introduced over period of time starting with new customers unable to download the app, while current users would lose access to updates, with potential one years notice of the implementation of  the ban.

 

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