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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

#411

Post by micromacrofoot »

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…

By most accounts I've seen, pre-epic bandcamp was not struggling at their size. Perhaps this is uninformed, but it will be interesting to see what information comes to light after NDAs expire.

I suspect Epic had plans for bandcamp, for various reasons they had a change of heart... and re-sold partially out of a combination of frustration and the shifting economy. This wouldn't be the first time a somewhat purpose-driven company had a post-acquisition fallout, and it won't be the last.

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

#412

Post by ponector »

fzeroracer wrote: post #336
ponector wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free healthcare! I pay 9% of my income in Poland for the public healthcare I couldn't use due to enormous queues. Therefore I pay subscription to the private medical provider, pay for dentistry, for all the medicine prescribed by any doctor(public as well). What percentage of income typical software spends for medical insurance and bills?

In the US? Having to go to the hospital, having an illness etc can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Other countries pay more per paycheck, we pay a lot more per bill. Going to the hospital would bankrupt me even as a relatively well off software engineer and even with my decent (work-tied) healthcare I still have months of wait time. In order to get into a doctor I made an appointment in February for a visit in Sep…

In US if you are a software engineer, what percentage of your salary would you spend for health insurance, medicine, copay etc?

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

#413

Post by glitcher »

slikrick wrote: post #195
creshal wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know this won't be a popular thing to say, but I'd like to take a moment to thank Songtradr for consulting their lawyers and full-considering all legal requirements. That's just the bare minimum they have to do to not get sued, is that really thankworthy?

apparently the bar for companies is that low that HN is bootlicking the bare minimum. it's honestly hilarious. this is extremely shady, and I don't know why people are trusting the source directly lol. they wouldn't say they did anything untoward, ever

You are here, so you are also HN. There are also other HN comments here that disagree with the parent post just as you do. Saying what HN does or does not do is almost always going to be provably false and tends to add nothing of value to the conversation. I would even go so far as hypothesizing that on any given controversial topic there tends to be a large divide of opposing opinions on clear display. But maybe I just think that because I'm HN.

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

#414

Post by runarberg »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #384
runarberg wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The wave of unionization refers to new unions being formed, more workplaces unionizing, and a general zeitgeist favoring union. It does not refer to total number of union members.

Since the 1980s the trend has been that unions, unionized workplaces, and union memberships have all been on a steep decline (along with pay, worker rights, etc.). It is not surprising that union memberships will continue to decline given the previous trend, but also the confounding variables of union member being more likely to be close to retirement age, rate of unemployment, gig workers, contractors, etc.

However, this trend is starting to reverse. There have been several high profile workplaces unionizing, several high profile unionizing efforts, and a general positive reaction among the working public. Notable also—and very much a part of this wave—are several high profile strikes, near strikes and other direct action. UPS narrowly avoided a strike, UAW are striking, screenwrites had one of their longest strikes, actors are in one of their longest strikes. Amazon has seen walkouts, etc.

This is very much a wave, even though one particular line does not reflect it.

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

#415

Post by thinkerswell »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #407
tomcam wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is this "free market" you describe? Am I free to occupy any building I like, or does your "free" market include a concept of a "property" and entire government bureaucracies and men with guns to enforce such concepts? Does your "free market" make a distinction between "I expect this property to still be mine tomorrow" and "I expect this job to still be mine tomorrow"? Does you "free market" allow for individuals…

Go watch a few Milton Friedman videos and you’ll have answers to those questions, though you may not like the answers.

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

#417

Post by RHSeeger »

0xpgm wrote: post #234
RHSeeger wrote: post #167

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. And that's one of the reasons we don't have free market economies in general; because they are extremely harmful to society as a whole.

The USSR collapsed because of imbalances caused by decades of centralized planning and control. China survived communism because it implemented free-market reforms (while retaining centralized control in the political structure). I'd say generally, the free market is what makes economies work. Edit: minor rewording

No, some amount of "free market" leaning is useful. But absolute free markets are catastrophic to society. I'm not aware of any major countries that have an actual free market. They all have laws limiting what companies are allowed to do.

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

#418

Post by bryans »

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…

If you want to build trust in this industry, I think you'll need to do better than cloning an existing product and slapping a "for the people" label on it. Content creators of all types are exhausted by the endless nickel and diming, so at this point, transparency is going to be the only way to attract a mass audience.

When everyone knows hosting costs equate to a fraction of a penny per sale, you'll need to strongly justify that 5% fee. You'll need to pay ~3.5% in PRO fees just to have public playback on the site -- even if there's not a single cover song among the uploaded albums -- so let both the artist and fan know where that money is going and why.

A huge problem with the "pay what you want" model is that the host and PRO still get to middleman what is fundamentally a tip from the fan. Find a way to implement a secondary form for tips that go straight to an account the artist owns, without making the purchase form more complicated, and you'll have an attractive and unique feature.

However, Fourthwall already has a polished version of your product roadmap and charges less for it, albeit without the music-specific theming, and even Patreon recently implemented direct digital sales. You're facing an uphill battle against entrenched and VC-backed products.

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

#419

Post by JumpCrisscross »

greenie_beans wrote: post #408
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

i don't see how uaw bargaining is good for tesla. that just sounds like capitalist logic with unsubstantiated data. wouldn't higher wages at a ford factory will force telsa to match those wages if they want to be competitive in the labor market? maybe the owning class should take less profit so the consumer doesn't have to take on that extra cost, but unfortunately the incentive structure of capitalist enterprise doe…

> higher wages at a ford factory will force telsa to match those wages if they want to be competitive in the labor market

Given perfect mobility, yes. But the labor market Tesla and foreign manufacturers in the United States compete in are separate from those of the UAW's. The evidence for this is in their present labor cost differential: $45 and 55/hour for Tesla and Toyota, respectively, vs $65/hour for UAW factories, en route to $100+ [1].

Keep in mind, too, that union jobs are supply constrained. The UAW represents about 200,000 automotive workers [2]. That's a fifth of all motor vehicles and parts manufacturing workers [3].

> maybe the owning class should take less profit so the consumer doesn't have to take on that extra cost

It's going the other way. Tesla can cut prices to below where Detroit can turn a profit. That matters when the latter are asking for capital to fund their investments.

One solution would be to tax non-union produced cars such as to equalize the gap. But again, that would require a state to trade their consumers' welfare for another's employees'. A better one is to pass into law worker protections for all Americans.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Auto_Workers_strik...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206209107/united-auto-worker...

[3] https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iagauto.htm

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

#420

Post by plussed_reader »

jacobr1 wrote: post #297
rahoulb wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expla…

But in this case apparently they didn't actually sell the company, so no employees moved. The employees were still employed at Epic, until laid off by Epic. So presuming there was a violation of labor law (in the US or hypothetically in the UK) wouldn't all liability rest with Epic? Unless the argument is that it really _was_ a sale of the company, which probably rests on very technical arguments specific to the juri…

This is just the Prop 13 workaround for business real estate in California; don't sell the property sell the LLC that owns the deed to the plot.

This should be illegal but it just sounds like good free market business.

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