TIKTOK might be on the nose with intelligence agencies worried about its Chinese ownership, but for the Hunter Region's peak union body, the social media app has driven a communications revolution.
"Since May 2021, we've been viewed on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter almost three million times," Hunter Workers secretary Leigh Shears said yesterday.
"We've gone from 71,540 social media views in 2020 to 1.46 million in 2021 and 1.52 million last year. And it was TikTok that contributed most significantly, with more than 1.4 million views of our videos, and more than 128,100 likes." As someone who happily describes himself as an "old school" unionist, Mr Shears said he had become acutely aware of a "communications gap".
"I can talk about solidarity and all of these things that are bread and butter to us as unionists but to someone coming out of school, it's meaningless," Mr Shears said. "But the young kids have the same values, you just have to reach them - and to allow them to come back at you - and social media does that."
Courtney Hardwick, the 23-year-old employed by Hunter Workers to run its campaign communications, says TikTok engages young people in a way that reams of dogma never could.
"TikTok lets us rapidly connect to an audience in a way that's not possible on any other platform," Ms Hardwick said.
"We've used TikTok to livestream local union rallies and protests so anyone internationally and locally can virtually attend, with 45,000 people tuning in over the past year to watch. Young people tell me they didn't know unions existed before they saw our content, and they say that now that they do, they'll be joining when they enter the workforce."
Tom Teal, a 24-year-old who's become a United Workers Union delegate where he works at the Wests Group, says social media was a significant influence on his decision to join his union.
"Before I became an active member of the union movement, I followed the efforts of my union and others across Australia on social media closely," Mr Teal said.
"One of the big reasons I joined was seeing all the wins posted on Facebook. It was inspirational seeing workers across Australia that had been doing it tough for so long finally banded together, spoke up, showed up and made the bosses realise their power. I came to think, why aren't we doing that too?"
The latest ABS figures put union membership at less than 13 per cent but Mr Shears believes social media has helped Hunter Workers and its member unions keep their numbers up in the region.
