Every member of Bandcamp United Union bargaining team was laid off | Hacker News Reader

Every member of Bandcamp United Union bargaining team was laid off

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109 pointsRyeCombinator26 comments

That means an entire team of highly-productive union members is available for hire at this very moment. Some opportunistic tech company is going to swoop on this deal.

Do we wanna? It's not like anyone's itching to overhire right now.

Why would tech, an industry famous for utterly refusing to work for labor protections while they still have power, ever hire people who are proven labor organizers?

Poe's law strikes again

Is it time to pull out the nuclear option? Firing due to union affiliation is illegal. Firing everyone on a bargaining team is obviously illegal. Time to bankrupt the company, such that most anyone with decision-making ability walks away _much poorer_ than they would have otherwise. Lessons need to be taught to the Parasite Class.

Most of the revenue that flows through Bandcamp goes to various of the (roughly) 300k artists with a page there.

Who do you think you're going to bankrupt, and how?

Companies die through dynamism all the time in a healthy economy. Why would one dying because of its poor relationship with workers be any worse? The org dies, the workers move on and attempt to unionize elsewhere. The time to protect Bandcamp was before they sold and became beholden to a new owner.

There are 9 million open jobs in the US currently, as a data point (latest jobs and JOLTS report).

The story at Bandcamp involves:

  1. the employees (and ex-employees) of the company
  2. the artists who put their work on the platform

There is currently no seriously viable alternative for the #2 group that offers anything remotely equivalent.

It’s unfortunate. An opportunity for a new org if Bandcamp dies. Looks like a bunch of folks are available for such an enterprise.

It's not really about the technology - that could likely be assembled in very short order. Platforms like this are intimately tied up in network effects, as well as platform inertia.

There absolutely needs to be another company that take its place

I am ignorant of the law here, so I want to be clear that I am asking out of genuine curiosity, not out of malice or some thinly veiled political ideology. I do not live in a location where unions are common.

The bargaining team was 8 people. Is it really illegal to fire them all? Does being a member of this team guarantee some members immunity? Can the team consist of former employees or can the remaining union members perform these functions?

> Is it really illegal to fire them all? Does being a member of this team guarantee some members immunity?

It depends on the local laws, but in most countries it would be extremely illegal. If it is legal in the US, it's a massive and worrying oversight that erodes workers' bargaining position.

The acquiring company probably didn't buy Bandcamp, they probably bought the assets, and that means the employees don't automatically come over, you get hired by the new company. Likely not a labor violation, unfortunately

From what I had read no one's been fired, Songtradr acquired the company without the employees and then hired back whoever they wanted

get around pesky laws with this one weird wording trick!

This should be wildly illegal.

Why?

Because in practice it allows firing people for reasons otherwise illegal. You shouldn't be able to get around the law by playing word games.

"We're not firing all black and jewish employees, we're just letting a shell company acquire our assets and then re-hire everyone who's a white christian male" reaaally should not be legal.

Isn't it illegal in the US?

In France a company that does this is promptly brought to court, loses, the union is created in bright daylight with fanfare and gets more people because of the publicity.

Left wing parties yell about apocalypse, right wing ones stay put this time, and the story never repeats.

It is. Basically EPIC is testing the water whether laying off via asset sale will be exempt. The layoff team need to have grit to fight thru supreme court to inflict huge damage to EPIC.

(edit: not a dupe)

Related/lots of earlier discussion:

About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37905638

How is this a dupe if the link and article are different, and the focus of the text itself is also different?

Not a dupe. This specific datum wasn't reported in the previous article.

Fine not dupe, plenty of related discussion. Can add to the thread over there about the specific Union aspect

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