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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

#221

Post by NoGravitas »

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…

In many states, civil servants (state employees) still cannot form or join unions.

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

#222

Post by Dah00n »

sickcodebruh wrote: post #209

For some context, it’s important to understand the degree to which Bandcamp’s success and ubiquity with independent music is built on a people-first, anti-corporate culture. Bandcamp is an obsession for a very large and engaged segment of the independent music world. A good friend, a professional musician, told me “I feel like I’m watching my childhood home burn to the ground.” This is far from a unique sentiment. Pe…

Sounds good, but since it is not EU based, my band and I will have to stay put. Good luck though. Competition is a good thing.

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

#223

Post by NoGravitas »

qwery wrote: post #153

> Songtradr had no access to union membership information and we executed our employment offer process with full-consideration of all legal requirements I know this won't be a popular thing to say, but I'd like to take a moment to thank Songtradr for consulting their lawyers and full-considering all legal requirements. I believe them when they say they didn't legally acquire the union's documentation on membership. B…

They consulted their lawyers to be able to structure the buyout and the layoffs in such a way as to have plausible deniability for busting the union. Are you saying that it's to their credit to not have bulled forward with blatantly illegal union busting, but rather to have done enough diligence to possibly have stayed within the letter of the law?

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

#224

Post by svaha1728 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54
hipadev23 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just acquired the company two weeks prior and layoffs are extremely common after one.

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.

You haven’t been part of a startup acquisition lately. The optics are intentional.

The Musk management style is common in this type of acquisition.

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

#225

Post by fnomnom »

drcongo wrote: post #220
fnomnom wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what did they edit? im honestly curious as in my perception bandcamp is something that i get a link to from a band and that i then use to buy music. have problably spent a couple of 100 € over the years there.

It's not that hard to visit the Bandcamp home page and see a ton of editorial content. I've spent thousands, if that's relevant.

i just did and almost missed it. it looks like ads for albums except there is a small "feature" string. i'm honestly not sure i ever visited this page before. always went directly to the band site.

to understand my POV better, my usecase is: - band that i like and follow (mostly newsletter, some social media, rarely friends that mention it drecty) sends an update "hey new stuff, click here" - i click the link, listen a bit, buy and download

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

#226

Post by NoGravitas »

siva7 wrote: post #18

Seems more like the layoffs were about laying off the union members. Some CEOs perceive unions as cancer that has to be stopped from metastasis. In countries with stronger union protection laws this move would have been illegal

It is theoretically illegal in the US. It's just plausible that Rentseekr have managed to either stay within the letter of the law while violating its spirit, or have produced enough plausible deniability to deter a legal challenge.

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

#227

Post by hknmtt »

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.

a) they can always go work for another company, that is the main point here b) who the fuck are you to tell people how much their work is worth? commie much? how about you mind your own business and let other people make their own decisions.

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

#228

Post by cbreezyyall »

sickcodebruh wrote: post #209

For some context, it’s important to understand the degree to which Bandcamp’s success and ubiquity with independent music is built on a people-first, anti-corporate culture. Bandcamp is an obsession for a very large and engaged segment of the independent music world. A good friend, a professional musician, told me “I feel like I’m watching my childhood home burn to the ground.” This is far from a unique sentiment. Pe…

Is that contact form the best way to get in touch with you about getting involved?As a programmer and amateur DJ it breaks my heart to see the best website for buying tracks go down in flames.

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

#229

Post by gruez »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #206
filoleg wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a direct admission that unions are for protecting low-performers? Because if yes, that’s not a good look for them at all and is kind of a perfect ammo for the anti-union side.

No. Unions are for protecting employees against abusive employers. Your highest performing state is temporary. There will be times where you’ll have off days. You will deal with death in the family. You will be eventually injured. If you aren’t already disabled, you will eventually be (this is just old age). You may become a parent. You might immigrate and come under restrictive visa. You’re a human being with fluctu…

Is it "abusive" for employers to fire/not pay you if you're away for weeks, or underperforming for months? The terms of the exchange is your time for money. The company isn't a charity.

Even if you think there should be a social safety net for these types of circumstances, it makes little sense for employers to provide it. For one, it has the usual problems of tying important services to employment, similar to how healthcare is in the US. It also puts an undue burden on small businesses. You run a 10 person startup and one of your employees got a long term disability? Congratulations, you have to now find a replacement AND continue paying them. Large companies have law of large numbers on their side, but as an unlucky small business that's 10% of your payroll.

>Edited to add: this is not the mention your employer might just pull some crap like nepotizing a promotion over you, where a union would come in handy handy!

1. has there been a good track record of unions being able to successfully prevent cases like these?

2. Given the level of corruption associated with unions, at least in the US, you're just replacing one problem with another.

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

#230

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

Easiest source I can find right now is that Bandcamp had 76 employees in 2020: https://www.inquirer.com/business/bandcamp-spotify-covid-art...

And it was 118 at the time of layoffs, as you'd see in pretty much every article (and Wikipedia) talking about the topic. I can't exactly pinpoint how much they had when Epic swooped in, but even Bandcamp had a modest growth over the pandemic.

And my condolences for the editorial. I didn't even know Bandcamp had articles before reading this comment.

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