Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by gizmo » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

0xpgm wrote: post #236

ahoka wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think a free-market is? Something where the company could harvest the organs of the employees instead of firing them to maximize profits?

I'd say that's quite an uncharitable interpretation. Free market doesn't mean breaking laws and violating social contracts.

Disregarding externalities is the essence of free market dogma. Whether it's pollution, cheating customers, forcing unpaid overtime on employees, unsafe workplaces, collusion and price fixing. It's a disastrous race to the bottom unless "Big Government" puts rules in place to get companies to engage in positive-sum behavior.

And that's the key issue. Positive sum (along with "first, do no harm") behavior is what makes societies healthy and prosperous. Laissez faire free market capitalism rewards extractive actions over positive sum actions with predictable catastrophic consequences.

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

#302

Post by jacobr1 » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #283

chasd00 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Does a judge want to set the precedent that union busting is legal when you do it with extra steps? 1) Fire everybody 2) Create new corporate entity 3) Rehire the meek and compliant 4) Sell corporate entity back to original company Judges tend to get very cranky when they have to deal with shenanigans like these.

Except there is no #4 in this case.

The question really should just be in #1 is legal. The extra shenanigans doesn't change that question.

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

#303

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #177

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.

That sounds plausible as a rationale. In my experience "bad culture fit" has been used as a stand in for "I don't want this person working here and I don't want to explain why" about 80% of the time. The reason is often racism. This time it could legitimately be illegal union busting.

[deleted]

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

#304

Post by yoyohello13 » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

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…

Someone makes something awesome that people love, it gets bought by a giant company, the giant company extracts as much value as possible and discards the corpse, someone makes an awesome new version. This is the software lifecycle.

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

#305

Post by benwad » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

0xpgm wrote: post #240

mandmandam wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a free-market economy, the companies that make less optimal decisions will have their lunch eaten by those that don't. In a race to the bottom, concern for others is a liability. Ugh.

I'd say an example of not showing concern for others is, for instance, using state power to bail out banks after the executives gambled with their customers savings and cashed out. Bad corporations are given a lifeline until the next set of customers is screwed.

The free market would have allowed those banks to fail and their customers would have lost all their savings. Personally I'd prefer if they'd bailed out the customers instead, but that still counts as a state intervention.

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

#306

Post by MrPatan » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

banannaise wrote: post #279

gruez wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because unions protect everyone in ways that don't directly relate to pay scale. They help defend against abusive time-off, on-call, or surveillance practices, advocate for pro-worker policies like parental, bereavement, and sick leave, help prevent employees from being fired for using these benefits...

The scarcity of your skillset will protect you. Nothing else can.

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

#307

Post by ramesh31 » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

I'm the most pro-union person you'll ever meet, but this is so cringe. Strikes work when you can shut down a factory and physically keep the scabs from getting in with a picket line. Not so much when you're a remote tech worker who can be instantly replaced by an equally competent third-worlder for $2/hr. You gotta know where your bargaining power lies, or you're just being an idiot.

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

#308

Post by mardifoufs » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

derrida wrote: post #204

ivalm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US median income, even disposable income after all the medical/housing costs, is higher than all of the large EU countries (France, Germany, etc). So if anyone has bullshit pay, it’s the Europeans.

How come everyone is in debt then? What is median debt?

A lot of European countries have a higher household debt load than the US. Compared to Europe, especially the richer parts of Europe, the US compares favorably:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_househo...

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

#309

Post by mardifoufs » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

axus wrote: post #181

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

I wonder if a compromise between "French-style" and "American-style" would be the government taking over the layoff business. Need to cut headcount? Send the Department of Labor your payroll, and they'll tell you who to lay-off.

French style would be to hire most of your employees as contractors to avoid stricter labor laws lol.

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

#310

Post by jacobr1 » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 2:51 PM UTC

josefx wrote: post #243

gruez wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

This is why we need to both good private (insurance) and public (social benefit) safety net programs in place.

In the case of a small startup, long term disability insurance should cover the living costs of that disability. Yes, that person should be let go, even a founder, if they are unable to perform their duties. But they shouldn't be kicked the street, and the company also shouldn't be on the hook for their care. Either through premiums or taxes, this situation should be accounted for ahead of time. Employment shouldn't be a lifetime obligation of a company.