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Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

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Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#111

Post by kundi »

dsign wrote: post #62
kundi wrote: post #46

We've been developing a curated alternative to Bandcamp for electronic music, which also replaces Soundclound and Mixcloud. It's called Formaviva ( https://formaviva.com ) We are a bootstrapped team of musicians, loyal to independent music so we want out platform to stay that way. We're also hiring: https://formaviva.com/jobs PS: I'm one of the team members

I had a quick look at your site. From the "Terms of Service": > Unless otherwise stated, Samorastnik d.o.o. and/or its licensors own the intellectual property rights for all material on Formaviva. Where's the "otherwise" for people that post music on your platform? I was actually searching for your legal status (which kind of legal persona you are and in which jurisdiction). I couldn't find a thing on your website.

To be honest, according to our potential misbelief about the world and how it works treating the project as a "sacred child", which might be an attitude very unknown to some of you here, it hasn't striked us that someone would go to look and read the Terms of Service, before really looking at the site, its mission and the music.

Perhaps you haven't had a chance to arrive there yet, but we will take your comment as a recommendation for the improvement, which will be implemented in the coming days so that also "law-oriented music lovers" will be pleased with the law-confirming evolution.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#112

Post by superchroma »

0xpgm wrote: post #92
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is too worried about the layoffs, but these look like targeted layoffs, reinforcing the notion that union members / representatives are troublesome. At the very least, for the sake of optics, they shouldn't have fired the union reps. Not all of them anyway.

> At the very least, for the sake of optics, they shouldn't have fired the union reps. Not all of them anyway. We're all making assumptions here, but let's assume they had legitimate business reasons for the layoffs. What you suggest is that they make less optimal decisions for the sake of optics. In a free-market economy, the companies that make less optimal decisions will have their lunch eaten by those that don't.

The idea that businesses operate with laser focus on revenue is fantasy. Businesses are filled with individuals acting mostly on emotions and vibes, people who waste time empire building, etc.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#113

Post by petre »

eru wrote: post #74
nemo44x wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT doesn’t traditionally gafe unions in the USA. Teachers are unionized here and are one of the most powerful political forces. They are also a likely reason why so many people here don’t like unions.

Until fairly recently (in historical terms) civil servants were not allowed to form unions in the US. Nowadays the civil service is a stronghold of unionisation in the US. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-sector_trade_unions_in_... for background. > Moe points out that Roosevelt, "an ardent supporter of collective bargaining in the private sector, was opposed to it in the public sector."[11] Roosevelt in 1937…

Of course, how typical of FDR to regurgitate a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Good for thee but not for me. In the end the federal government is just like any other employer.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#115

Post by Xophmeister »

the_other wrote: post #50

In the UK we have large unions that represent the individuals regardless where they work. I’ve not heard of company-specific unions here, although I’ve not looked for them either. Presumably companies must still recognise the unions. Is it more common in the US to have company-specific unions? Are the large “independent” unions present at all? I would assume that being larger and independent of an employer would make…

I've worked for a company in the UK which had a "staff association", which was orthogonal to any part of the business (i.e., no conflicting interests) and as such operated as a de facto union -- in the employee assistance and collective bargaining senses -- for the company's employees. While it was recognised by HR, ultimately its functions were incorporated by HR into the company as a matter of policy and the independent association was disbanded, amongst much consternation from the loss of true impartiality.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#116

Post by wjholden »

eru wrote: post #65
vanderZwan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a statistical catch-22? If being in a union increases the odds of getting fired… well, then there's nothing to discuss because that's illegal. And if it should decrease it because of fear of legal retaliation, wouldn't that make it less likely that this happened randomly. This feels like the wrong conclusion to draw (especially the second part), but I suck at statistics so someone please explain where I'm…

> Isn't this a statistical catch-22? If being in a union increases the odds of getting fired… well, then there's nothing to discuss because that's illegal. Extreme example: suppose a company has 100 employees. Four of them are in the union bargaining team and they just happen to all work for the widgets department because of an accident of history or randomness etc. The widgets department has 10 people overall. Now t…

You've given a really clear example of confusing probabilities! Would this be an instance of Simpson's Paradox?

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#117

Post by femiagbabiaka »

username332211 wrote: post #90
vanderZwan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teachers are unionized here and are one of the most powerful political forces. This does not seem compatible with all the stories I've heard about underpaid teachers having to buy material for their students out of their own pocket. I'm sure it somehow ends up both being true in a twisted way, but it still sounds strange.

If you think about it, American teachers are the most obvious example of why unionization doesn't necessarily improve anything at all. An average class of 24 costs just short of $700k per year to the citizens of New York City and the cost is rising rapidly every year. Meanwhile, teachers are supposed to be underpaid, overworked and exploited. I guess teachers are supposed to take solace in the fact they are very powe…

No, it shows how little real power they have, and how dire the situation would be in the absence of a union.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#118

Post by Vaslo »

gizmo wrote: post #114
hknmtt wrote: post #69

[flagged]

Not every employee is a good negotiator. And poor negotiators get underpaid in a market system even when they are great at their job. Unions fix this market inefficiency by having good negotiators act on their behalf.

The company doesn’t pay for the increased cost though. I pay as a consumer. What do I get in return, especially since I’m not in nor have any interest in joining one?

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#119

Post by nabla9 »

mandmandam wrote: post #106
nabla9 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American unions are not like European unions. In Europe sectoral unions and sectoral bargaining is the norm. In the US federal law does not allow that. Each firm must unionize individually. In the US unions and enterprices play zero sum game against each other. If the firm unionizes, the firm loses relative to non-unionized competition. Example: the current UAW (United Auto Workers) dispute in the US. If UAW wins, un…

> In the US federal law does not allow that If I understand correctly, this isn't true. There are laws that make this effectively true, but that's not quite the same thing. For example, secondary boycotts are banned. This limits the rights of workers and unions to freely associate and mobilize for their interests. That little doozy was rationalized by the excuse of protecting the economy (read: the status quo). Ianal…

I may be wrong, but I think it's the other way around. The law allows only company-level unionization, but there are ways to get effective sectoral bargaining agreements sometimes.

In Europe, we have laws that encourage it. For example, Finland has generally applicable collective agreements. If a large representative majority of workers achieve agreement with enterprise representatives in an industry sector, the agreement can become generally applicable. Every employer must observe at least the minimum provisions of a wide national collective agreement once it's considered representative in the relevant sector.

(Finland does not have laws about minimum wage. There is very little need for them because generally applicable agreements set the minimums.)

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#120

Post by SllX »

drcongo wrote: post #89
johnnyanmac wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of a Bandcamp customer, does any of this actually affect their ability to browse, buy, and listen to music? "ruin" implies the quality degraded, while "nothing" implies a neutral progression. The only degregation here is the layoffs from the torch passing, but I believe Bandcamp still has more employees now than they did before being acquired.

Nearly the entire editorial staff have been laid off, for music fans /artists of certain genres, these were the only people writing about their music. That's a significant degradation. The employee head count bit needs a citation I think, I wasn't aware that Epic had hired anyone at all into the Bandcamp team during their brief custody which would make that statement completely impossible.

I didn’t even know Bandcamp had any editorial staff. I usually just follow links from YouTube to songs or artists I like and buy music that way.
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