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

381–390 of 507 posts

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

#381

Post by afterburner »

dehrmann wrote: post #376

I get the impression there's an attitude from the newer generation of tech workers--the ones that are more progressive and less libertarian--about their right to unionize. They were so interested in union politics and the reading about the glory days of unions that they overlooked their current situation. You don't sell a company to break up a union and lay off half the staff. Bandcamp wasn't a good fit any more, and…

Unions don't need a labour shortage to have power. Collective bargaining is its own leverage.

Besides, unemployment is low, so I'm not sure why you're talking about there not being a labour shortage.

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

#382

Post by dragonwriter »

chefandy wrote: post #377
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.

Admission? Like the commenter is some kind of representative? And while unions aren't homogenous, they generally don't protect incompetence. I've known people in unions that got fired for poor performance, generally. But if I was a cook and cut off a finger while making some company profitable, my performance would certainly suffer while it was healing, and lots of companies world very much rather stop paying me. So…

> And while unions aren't homogenous, they generally don't protect incompetence

They tend to insist on due process for adverse actions, and management tend to hold out the idea that being able to dismiss arbitrarily without evidence or process is essential to efficiently dealing with incompetence.

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

#383

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#384

Post by JumpCrisscross »

runarberg wrote: post #311
mardifoufs wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid question: why weren't the employees unionized before epic took over? From what I'm reading it seems like it would've been easy considering the corporate culture it had. I know, hindsight and all, but I guess my point is that I'm wondering if Epic did something that led to unionizing. It sucks since it looks like bandcamp was doing pretty ok and didn't need to be sold around.

I think this is a good question. I’m guessing it might just be a circumstance of being located in California (as opposed to e.g. the UK) where unionization of tech workers is very rare. And that there simply wasn’t a push to start unionization efforts until after the Epic takeover. I also suspect that the unionization wave which is taking over the USA just didn’t start soon enough to start union efforts before the ta…

> the unionization wave which is taking over the USA

Union membership fell to an all-time low in 2022 [1]. Given Yellow's bankruptcy and the writer lay-offs, I'd expect that to have continued this year.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf

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

#385

Post by yanderekko »

vwoolf wrote: post #268
nabla9 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

A growing number of Americans consider sclerosis to be a virtue, as long as it can be seen as a natural result of extreme safetyism.

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

#386

Post by JumpCrisscross »

greenie_beans wrote: post #256
nabla9 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If UAW wins, unionized enterprises lose to Tesla. how does that work?

> how does that work?

Their costs are higher. (So far, I haven't seen evidence of higher productivity among unionized auto workers sufficient to make up for the cost gap.)

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

#387

Post by jdgoesmarching »

vwoolf wrote: post #266
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Heaven forbid people who create the value for a company have a say in its operations.

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

#388

Post by pstuart »

DanielHB wrote: post #196
nabla9 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just a factual example, in Sweden this year the union agreed wage increase for IT workers was 3.5% against an almost 10% inflation year-on-year and almost everyone is unionised. In an unionised sector in the US this would have been cause for immediate strikes. In Sweden (and many other european countries) unions work with government and companies to make the business succeed and that success be spread to the employee…

That seems to be the way to do it -- shared success and responsibility, vs America's approach of "I've got mine, Jack"

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

#389

Post by Scotch3297 »

SongTradr recently acquired 7digital. They plan to put the Bandcamp catalogue in there, so my biggest fear is that they get rid of Bandcamp as a separate product and just force everyone to use 7digital. That would make sense, considering they fired most writers (which is one of the things that was making Bandcamp special) and would confirm that everyone who said "The buyer doesn't understand what they are buying" were 100% correct. For them, Bandcamp was some sort of "itunes store for weird music".

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

#390

Post by JohnFen »

IBCNU wrote: post #373
sspiff wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering why noone had started a bandcamp alternative as I read this article. Bandcamp isn't a complicated product. It's the people and content that define its value. If trust and goodwill are eroded, then the platform loses its value. Glad to see an independent initiative in this space.

As someone who has been lucky to work on some large-scale apps that are household names with very very small teams, I find it fascinating/hilarious that comments from the Y Combinator peanut gallery often reduce acquired companies to 'isn't a complicated product, let's just rebuild over a weekend.' While the core technology may not be as 'complicated' as quantum computing, the unique challenges in execution, user eng…

There's a strong tendency for devs to underestimate how long it takes to develop software. My hypothesis is because devs tend to focus on the core functionality and are really estimating how long it would take to do that. But in most projects, that's only about 20% of the work required.

I'm also reminded of the old saying that "nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it."

Post reply on HN