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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

#361

Post by basisword »

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…

This just feels like an ad. Bandcamp hasn't changed one bit since the sale to Epic. 99% of users don't know anything about Bandcamp's operations let alone that the staff planned to unionise. Bandcamp has been around for a long time. People have libraries. Artists have their entire discogs on it. Niether of those camps are moving unless something fundamentally changes to force their hand - which hasn't happened yet.

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

#362

Post by drcongo »

fnomnom wrote: post #225
drcongo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I understand perfectly your POV, but it's not the experience of all of Bandcamp's users, particularly artists who release there, DJs, or fans of niche genres. The loss of the editorial team is huge to these groups.

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

#363

Post by JohnFen »

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?

Because union representation isn't just about pay?

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

#364

Post by justin66 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #341
justin66 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teachers are unionized here and are one of the most powerful political forces. I cannot even imagine what sort of lens you'd have to be looking through to identify teachers as "one of the most powerful political forces" in the United States. Certainly the awesome political power they wield hasn't helped to increase salaries (compare them to any other credentialed profession requiring a college degree), or prevent c…

At the same time, unions make it impossible to fire bad teachers Only a handful of teachers have been fired in the last 20 years in California

That means the teacher unions, public schools, and/or lawmakers in CA kind of suck. (I lived there but I never had kids there, so I don't have any deep knowledge on the matter, except that #3 is really obviously true)

It doesn't mean teachers are "one of the most powerful political forces" in the United States. It's like a tangent within a tangent so I guess there's not much more I'd say about that claim, other than... it's a really weird, obviously wrong thing to assert.

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

#365

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #351
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you somehow managed to dominate a market to complete exclusion of meaningful competitors, if you fail to grow, you are failing This is a trope in Silicon Valley, but it's simply not true. Most companies in a developed economy aim for a stable state, i.e. close to zero real growth with payments made to investors via sole proprietorship pay-outs, dividends and/or debt. Now a growth company is worth more than a sta…

I mean, fair point. But name a corporation that's publicly traded right now that isn't promising growth to shareholders? If they're all doing it, that's the status quo, irrespective of if they should be or not. FFS, Amazon promises growth. Amazon! A company so formidable that even it announcing it's thinking about entering a market causes a small stock blip to any major companies in that market, because it's presumed…

> name a corporation that's publicly traded right now that isn't promising growth to shareholders

The entire E&P sector comes to mind. For example, Marathon Oil "expects to deliver maintenance-level total Company oil production" this year [1].

Note that "publicly traded companies constitute less than 1 percent of all U.S. firms and about one-third of U.S. employment in the non-farm business sector" [2]. Most small businesses aim to stay small.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/101778/0000101778230...

[2] https://www.nber.org/digest/apr07/changing-business-volatili...

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

#366

Post by gruez »

JohnFen wrote: post #363
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 union representation isn't just about pay?

Those ultimately convert to pay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential#Empl...

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

#367

Post by JohnFen »

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…

> Unions are for protecting employees against abusive employers.

That's one important role of unions, but it's not the only one. The primary purpose of unions is to allow employees to negotiate with employers on a more equal playing field. Without unions, the power imbalance generally ensures that employees are at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating a fair deal.

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

#368

Post by peyton »

sickcodebruh wrote: post #325
dimal wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for making this a public benefit company. We need more companies to follow this route to protect against future enshittification. But with public benefit corporations, I’ve been wondering, is it possible at some point for the board vote to change to some other type of entity, like a C-corp? And what rules are in place to enforce that it is working in the public benefit? Cory Doctorow talks about using Ulyss…

My understanding of it (and IANAL) is that while the board could potentially vote to change it, the shareholders can take legal action for failing to pursue the public benefit obligations. I can't say whether trying to remove the public benefit obligation alone is grounds to bring a suit, but I think they'd be able to make a case for it. My hope is that being a PBC will scare off predators and encourage like-minded p…

Nonissue once you’re big enough to have a legal dept to deal with shit like that.

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

#369

Post by chimeracoder »

gizmo wrote: post #344
jacobr1 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But it would still set the /precedent/ that you can lawfully shed troublesome employees who you could otherwise not fire by changing the ownership structure of a company. #1 by itself is not illegal. When companies move a factory overseas they also just fire everybody. Not nice, but not illegal.

> #1 by itself is not illegal. When companies move a factory overseas they also just fire everybody. Not nice, but not illegal.

It's not illegal in se, but it is illegal if it's done in order to retaliate against employees for organizing, in order to target union employees, in order to undermine a union, etc.

There's a question of enforcement, and there's the challenge of proving that to the requisite legal standard. But assuming the facts are established, it's actually a very clear violation of the NLRA.

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

#370

Post by gruez »

noelherrick wrote: post #315
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?

Why do some of the most highly-paid people (actors) join a union and join the picket line? Even if you are high performing, joining up with other workers increases your bargaining position. Why did Steve Jobs join up with Adobe to stop poaching when they were highly sought after work places? Because even if you're a behemoth, you can be stronger in a union.

>Why do some of the most highly-paid people (actors) join a union and join the picket line? Even if you are high performing, joining up with other workers increases your bargaining position.

Perhaps, but there's also a real chance that the union structure you end up with ends up being net negative for top earners. If you're in the top 10%, what makes you think the bottom 90% won't vote for policies that end up redistributing your wages to them?

Also as I said in my other comment[1], whether this is actually true is irrelevant. All that matters is that it sounds plausible and some fraction of people believe it. Perception is reality in this case.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37942073

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