Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

404media.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 507 posts

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

#241

Post by sbarre »

Dah00n wrote: post #222
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.

I'm not affiliated with Ampwall (or even American) but I'm curious what the objection is here?

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

#242

Post by 0xpgm »

superchroma wrote: post #112
0xpgm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That is true, but it eventually catches up with them. On the whole, large organizations with this kind of internal environment stagnate and are unable to innovate any longer. They then resort to buying startups to acquire products or talent.

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

#243

Post by josefx »

gruez wrote: post #229
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 he…

> The terms of the exchange is your time for money.

So the contract only covers time? Not actual work, but only time? Do I get to spend the time how I want as long as there is a paper trail that it was your time I just wasted?

> The company isn't a charity.

Yet both are legal and social constructs and not something you can make up on the fly to fit your personal preferences.

> it makes little sense for employers to provide it.

I have been worked to exhaustion for one employer. You don't get to reap the profits and socialize the costs, that only incentivizes more abuse.

> You run a 10 person startup and one of your employees got a long term disability?

So if that person was you would you fire yourself and move onto the street in front of your former business?

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

#245

Post by sickcodebruh »

throwaway290 wrote: post #233
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…

It was building up since the original team sold to Epic. Can't trust after that. What is the difference of your service with eg. Deezer? Someone in another thread mentioned it offers lossless DRM-free downloads these days.

I can't speak about Deezer specifically since I'm not familiar with their product, only their name. There's a little FAQ up at https://ampwall.com/faq-alpha that might answer many of your questions, I'd prefer not to go full Pitch Mode on HN. But in short: artist-owned and operated -- I am the first user and have skin in the game that goes beyond money, incorporated as a Public Benefit Company, with a distinct vision that is more inclusive of music culture beyonds just bands and labels. It'll take time for the vision to be realized but we're on the right track. Happy to answer any other questions through email if you'd like, hails@ampwall.com or chris@ampwall.com.

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

#246

Post by InTheArena »

ivolimmen wrote: post #49

I find it so weird to read these stories on how Americans cope with unionizing. In the Netherlands where I live it is very common and normal to be member of a union. Most branches have a union, IT sector is a "free sector" and does not have a union. My wife works as a teacher and she is member of a union.

Unions in America are much more militant and much less cooperative, much more likely to go to zero-sum negotiations than in Europe. They also are far far far more corrupt than unions in Europe.

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

#247

Post by sickcodebruh »

cbreezyyall wrote: post #228
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.

Email is best! Inbounds are getting kind of wild so we just setup hails@ampwall.com so I'm not a bottleneck. You can also do chris@ampwall.com but I'm monitoring the shared box. The form on the page adds you to the mailing list, which I'm trying to delay using because I loathe newsletter spam.

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

#248

Post by chmod775 »

bananaquant wrote: post #32
extraduder_ire wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing the headline, and remembering that 50% of employees were laid off, my first thought was: "what're the odds?" I assume I'd have to use NCR or something to calculate that. I know the upper (rarest) bound is 1/2^40, but it's likely much more likely, and not random.

As an HR would say, those people are "a bad cultural fit", which legitimately raises the probability of them being laid off to 100%. Simple.

Bad culture fit is hard to argue when those 8 people were literally elected by their peers to represent them. One might say they're as perfect a representation of company culture as you could find.

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

#249

Post by chasd00 »

gizmo wrote: post #205
mhandley wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood correctly, they are claiming that Epic effectively laid off everyone and sold some of the assets to SongTradr. SongTradr then made offers to half the previous employees. As these people were not previously SongTradr employees, SongTradr hasn't laid off anyone because of their union activities - they didn't employ them in the first place. At least I expect that's their argument. Seems like the way the…

Firing everybody and only re-hiring the meek employees is a classic union-busting tactic and plainly unlawful.

i think the argument the parent is making is songtradr didn't fire anyone the only hired who they preferred.

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

#250

Post by rahoulb »

mhandley wrote: post #190
Animats wrote: post #10

It's illegal.See "Discriminating against employees because of their union activities or sympathies" [1] Enforcement is weak, but it's illegal. [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/di...

If I understood correctly, they are claiming that Epic effectively laid off everyone and sold some of the assets to SongTradr. SongTradr then made offers to half the previous employees. As these people were not previously SongTradr employees, SongTradr hasn't laid off anyone because of their union activities - they didn't employ them in the first place. At least I expect that's their argument. Seems like the way the…

I don't know about elsewhere, but under UK law this would be illegal - precisely to stop this sort of thing happening.

The new company has to offer employees a "transfer of previous employment" - so even though you're working for someone else, your history at the previous company is moved over with you. So if they wanted to get rid of you, they would then have to go through a redundancy process - which involves explaining why they're letting you go, offering you alternatives and giving you a payout based on your length of service.

Post reply on HN