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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

#261

Post by tomcam »

Fischgericht wrote: post #254

In any case anyone wants to read about a EU perspective: Over here in Germany the "trick" of doing an asset deal to get rid of employees (and any benefits they may have earned over time) is very risky, and can fire back massively. It's not a black-and-white thing, but the labor courts have check-lists: - Are people at the new company work on the same tasks as they did in the old one? - Are people at the new company s…

Super informative. I must reveal my bias toward a free market here, but I also remember keenly what it was like to be a powerless employee.

Germany appears to have by far the strongest economy in the EU but with higher unemployment than the USA. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the balance there vs the USA? I can imagine compelling arguments for each approach.

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

#262

Post by throwboatyface »

InTheArena wrote: post #246
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.

This is just saying "union bad" in more words. The recent WGA strike and Teamsters strike at UPS both got terrific results for workers. The UAW and SAG-AFTRA are also very effectively striking right now.

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

#263

Post by watwut »

gruez wrote: post #185
bananaquant wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's probably a performance component as well. If you're high performing, can pick whatever job they want, and therefore get paid well above your peers, why would want to join a union?

I have to say, this claim goes against what I have seen in real life. As in, people active in unions or other activism are not lesser performers.

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

#264

Post by internetsamurai »

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.

All the music on the platform remains intellectual property of the artists or labels that upload it (as stated in your quote).

Any potential ambiguity in the TOS will related to your concern will be thoroughly assessed.

The company information has been added to the TOS page as well.

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

#265

Post by internetsamurai »

lkramer wrote: post #218
kundi wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize if this got transmitted in the inappropriate form. Could you share your perspective on what would be the most productive terms for the independent musicians and what all would you expect them to entail?

If you were really on the independent musicians side, the default should always be that they retain all rights to their own work. That is what was attractive about Bandcamp for musicians, they were merely a payment processor.

This is already the case (see the response above).

Is there anything else in particular that you would find important to address?

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

#266

Post by vwoolf »

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.

union members / representatives are troublesome

Unions are parasites and sources of great evil. Want to control a company? Found one, or buy its shares.

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

#267

Post by diggan »

creshal wrote: post #257
diggan wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Usually) Better/more stable working conditions for workers in Europe compared to the US. Band could also just be based in EU and prefer the user-protections EU offers compared to the US.

Bandcamp was/is American too, though. Bandcamp was fine, but this isn't?

I guess maybe you learn from your mistakes? I'm not GP that said I wouldn't use ampwall, so I'm just guessing what the reasoning could be.

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

#268

Post by vwoolf »

nabla9 wrote: post #97
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.

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…

Perhaps union infestations help explain Europe's sclerotic economic performance, relative to the U.S.'s: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-thin...

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

#269

Post by tomcam »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #149
derrida wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the EU it is probably why they have free healthcare, high minimum wage, work weeks of 34-38 hrs, welfare, 8 hour work days, overtime after, high proportion of part time workers, and highest productivity per hour in Germany. But yeah, unions, hate what you gotta hate. I personally hate long hours for bullshit pay.

Well, it's not really free healthcare, at least not here in Finland. You're expected to spend at least an hour every day exercising with all the time we have off here to make sure you don't get super sick in the first place. In practice then we actually work 45 hours a week every week.

Would love a deeper explanation of this! Is it voluntary or required for all employers or what? There seems to be a Finnish program called Fit For Life originated in 1995 but I can’t tell if it’s compulsory and/or effective?

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

#270

Post by brian626 »

datenwolf wrote: post #199

Does anyone know the size of Bandcamp's catalogue. I'm just wondering about hardware costs (storage) would be for prospective competitors who intend to swoop up Bandcamp's customers (artists and listeners). Audio is a lot less demanding than video, and since there's no DRM it's basically just static files with some access control.

Another factor to consider is that BC makes files available to download in a variety of formats (MP3, FLAC, AAC, etc.) Presumably they're transcoding on the fly from a lossless format and not storing all those extra files...
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