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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

#431

Post by epivosism »

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…

By definition unions have local monopolies and can't be attacked. In a well-run truly free economy, corporations don't have that.

my view of the power distributions and their results

  * company town, one company enslaving all workers
To your point about house ownership being protected by law, but job ownership not being, I think it's a matter of contracts. Selling someone and helping them own it forever is fairly trivial since it's independent (the house can decay and nobody has to pay for it, water may run out etc). But providing a job forever is another story since it clearly requires continued input of a certain quality from the worker, as well as an assumption about stability of the company, part of the economy. So it's quite easy to enforce property ownership since there are basically no guarantees (air quality, noise, availability of food, etc etc may all die out but the person still owns the land). But for a job there's no way that anyone can ensure that it will always be profitable or useful to pay a person (who ages) to do a thing.

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

#432

Post by skeeter2020 »

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.

Weird that you conflate a union with an oligopoly; historically they've been the polar opposite answer to each other.

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

#433

Post by rory »

uuddlrlrbaba wrote: post #391
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.

I'm not sure if this is factored into your unemployment numbers, but in the USA its very common for all adults to need to work in order to make ends meet. Whereas in a stronger economy with employment laws protecting employees it'd be much more possible for a family to live comfortably off a single income, making for a lot more "unemployed" adults.

Odd then that the USA has a much lower labor force participation rate than Germany.

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

#434

Post by skeeter2020 »

ludston wrote: post #278
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?

Not every talented person is motivated by greed for personal wealth and status. Actually most aren't.

Forget about money - do you know a lot of talented people who are happy working with people who don't share the same motivations?

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

#435

Post by jp57 »

throwboatyface wrote: post #259
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…

This is not correct. The current UAW strike is to get back benefits the union voluntarily gave up during the 2008 recession because they wanted to keep the Big 3 alive. The union is absolutely willing to bargain in a way that is beneficial to both employees and the companies long term.

What about SAG-AFTRA and WGA? These seem like sectoral unions. Actors and writers move between projects owned by different companies but continue to be protected by the same union.

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

#436

Post by diob »

tomcam wrote: post #261
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.

I'd rather have less jobs, with better benefits / pay.

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

#437

Post by babypuncher »

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…

In the US, we reward companies coming up with clever loopholes to screw people over. In Europe they see these tricks for exactly what they are and punish these companies anyways.

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

#438

Post by kbelder »

willcipriano wrote: post #212
gruez wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case why don't we see school boards have expense policies to shut them up?

Why dosent the union have its members just refuse to buy anything?

You're misunderstanding. The union likes having the teachers buying supplies. It makes them sympathetic victims.

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

#439

Post by lolinder »

diob wrote: post #436
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.

I'd rather have less jobs, with better benefits / pay.

By this do you mean that you would rather be unemployed than employed with less benefits, or that you would rather other people be unemployed while you get good benefits?

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

#440

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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