The executive class exploit the labour of the working class to benefit themselves. CEOs are in general opposed to collective action among the workers beneath them as any shift of power to the workers necessarily represents a loss of power for the executive.
Is it more common in the US to have company-specific unions? Are the large “independent” unions present at all?
I would assume that being larger and independent of an employer would make them more useful to their members.
Watching, casually, the news of Bandcamp’s and Moog’s unions over the last year, I couldn’t shake the feeling they wouldn’t work out as they’d be too small and likely their leadership inexperienced.
I don't know if their leadership was good or not but American trades unionism is pretty different to ours. Employees typically don't have a huge amount of legal rights and so getting your workplace unionised is much more of a battle than here. On the other hand, America has de facto closed shops which are illegal pretty much everywhere in Europe.
It's not mandatory and not all companies have it. I once joked, at my first job: "We should create a Betriebsrat!", my boss took me to his office and explained to me for an hour how horrible those are for a company. Companies are absolutely not allowed to prevent employees from forming one and he was incredibly afraid of having one in his company...
I would really like to see something like Castopod [0], but for artists! Spinning up a website where you showcase and sell your music should (and could!) be as easy as using Wordpress, either via a subscription or self-hosted – on your own domain.
Being plugged into the Fediverse makes it much easier to interact with fans and build a connection with your audience. It also makes it easy for people to share and talk about a track or and album. None of this requires that you tie yourself to yet another VC-funded startup and a closed garden.
Maybe someone is building something like this already, that I am not aware of?
I can imagine a 1-click solution that would set up everything. But bandcamp also has this functionality where labels can list their artists etc so I think it wouldn't work that well.
Wordpress has already integrated with the Fediverse, btw!
While I am a fan of federated social, it does not solve the problem for artists of replacing Bandcamp in any way, shape, or form. Bandcamp provided a storefront, payment handling, a distribution mechanism[1], and a potential audience + editorial that kept people coming back.
A Castopod for Musicians does none of this.
[1] Distribution of digital media, anyway. Distributing physical media was still an exercise left to the artist.
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.
I believe them when they say they didn't legally acquire the union's documentation on membership. But they "carried out a comprehensive, full company evaluation that involved a detailed examination of each role" and seem pretty anal about their legal requirements. It's become expected that a prospective employee's social media accounts will be "evaluated" as part of the hiring process, so I imagine that was the case here, too. (Do you think any of the union members, the union-curious or even the anti-union weirdos ever mentioned the union on twitter?)
It goes on to explain that the "evaluation considered several factors such as product groups, job functions, employee tenure, performance evaluations[0]," and amusingly "the importance of roles for smooth business operations".
[0] performance evaluations were just one of several factors evaluated (comprehensively) in the detailed examination during the full company evaluation
That's just the bare minimum they have to do to not get sued, is that really thankworthy?
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
There's nothing here to be thankful for, not a damn thing.
Well, I did say I knew that wouldn't go down well here...
No, nobody should be thanking them for this.
We should be mocking them for making such a ridiculous, offensive and typical statement. As if anyone would expect them to not have the forethought to check where the line would be. As if a company protecting itself in the usual way is a reason for why no actual people should think ill of them. As if we should be thanking them.
Note that all they are saying is they weren't given access to membership information. The only way they could have had access is if it were given to them. When I say "legally acquire" I'm not ruling out other means of accessing that information directly, but the trick being performed here is mentioning this when it's irrelevant. They don't need access to membership information to know who is "on their side".
It's disgusting
These are not the union bargainers though but rather the people who represent workers' interest in the company (they need to sign off on contract changes etc.). The bargainers are usually working for the union and not a company.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/di...
Seems like the way the sale was set up, it was deliberately done to avoid any commitments to the Bandcamp workforce. No idea of the legality of this, but if I was a Bandcamp employee that was lucky enough to move to SongTradr, I'd be polishing my resume, because it doesn't bode well for them being a good employer.
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 explaining why they're letting you go, offering you alternatives and giving you a payout based on your length of service.
> “Of those laid off, 40 were in the union bargaining unit out of a total 67 members. None of the eight (8) democratically elected bargaining team members received a job offer.”
I assume I'd have to use NCR or something to calculate that. I know the upper (rarest) bound is 1/2^40, but it's likely much more likely, and not random.
At the very least, for the sake of optics, they shouldn't have fired the union reps. Not all of them anyway.
The company is being acquired and then they are choosing not to issue a bunch of people contracts.
There are also a bunch of GUI tools that claim to download libraries (search for "bandcamp downloader") but I haven't used any of them.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/epic-games-drags-ban...
08/2020 Epic files suit against Apple and Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
09/2020 Discussion of Epic vs. Bandcamp and app store fees: https://www.shacknews.com/article/120550/tim-sweeney-on-why-...
05/2021 "The trial ran from May 3 to May 24, 2021" from the same wikipedia link.
03/2022 Epic acquires bandcamp, a year after their trial. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/arts/music/epic-games-ban...
Why would Epic acquire bandcamp as a "pawn" to use a year after their trial concluded? It's far more reasonable to assume Epic had a legitimate business interest in Bandcamp, and if anything, the execs of the companies had started talking due to the (concluded) lawsuit and shared interest in not losing 30% of their revenue.
a) Epic makes Unreal Engine and runs an asset store that includes sounds and music. Why not include bandcamp and their huge catalog in that store?
b) Epic makes Fortnite, which has tons of music industry tie-ins through purchasable emotes, song tracks, and free in-game concerts. Bandcamp sounds like a great avenue to expand existing agreements to sell music through Fortnite.
c) Epic also acquired Harmonix, which is the original developer of Guitar Hero and various music game spinoffs. Who knows wtf they're doing with Harmonix, but Harmonix+Bandcamp seems like an easy business strategy. "Buy this album on bandcamp and get it in the new Harmonix game too", and vice versa.
Epic has their hands in an awful lot of pies these days, and their layoff statement seemed to be a straightforward admission that their eyes were bigger than their stomach.
Bandcamp is heading for the dead pool, and it fucking sucks because it's my go to online music store. God damnit Epic.
The problem then becomes bargaining—companies (see Starbucks) can drag out negotiations indefinitely. This part of labor law probably can’t be changed without congress unfortunately. The PRO Act included rules which forced companies to negotiate within a certain time window but it didn’t pass.
You can't call yourself "the most pro-union person you'll ever meet" if your opinion is equivalent to "unions are only appropriate for those who already have structural power".
And why hire people in silicon Valley where they cost double what they would pretty much anywhere else?
But, hey songtradr, here some ideas for Bandcamp's new name!
* Banned Camp
* Boot Camp
* Sudden Death Camp
* Union Busting Camp
* Camp Greed
etc.
https://bandcamp.com/api/mobile/24/serverinfo?platform=andro...
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 it was over-staffed. Unions worked during their heyday because there was a labor shortage, so they had leverage. Bandcamp employees didn't have that leverage.
Besides, unemployment is low, so I'm not sure why you're talking about there not being a labour shortage.
Is it low in tech? There have been a lot of layoffs over the past year.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/epic-games-drags-ban...
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.
the only 'business' left for people in that 'industry' is to charge rent which is taxes
This has been building for some time. The Epic sale set it in motion. The formation of the union was a signal to supporters that the staff distrusted the new owners and were taking steps to protect the company’s mission. The Songtradr sale escalated it. The perception of targeting union members is being interpreted as confirmation of all fears.
So while the tech industry has dealt with high-profile layoffs for the past year, I don’t think most if any of those companies have the cultural significance of Bandcamp or have a for-the-people ethos baked into their DNA. This is much more significant than layoffs after an acquisition. The perception of targeting union members could do irreparable harm to a brand built on honesty, support, and integrity.
[0] - https://ampwall.com
You are correct in that most people do not know anything about what's happening. But Bandcamp is largely a platform that courts super-fans and a sizable portion of this people are keyed into independent music, with all its happenings and drama. This is especially true for the successful bands, labels, and journalists who use their platform. So while 99% of their users might have no idea, the 1% that does contains many people who are heavily involved in making and influencing independent music. We see visible evidence of this in the number of music news sites that are posting updates on the situation. And I see evidence through the volume and intensity of feedback I'm receiving.
If trust and goodwill are eroded, then the platform loses its value.
Glad to see an independent initiative in this space.
That's exactly what makes developing a replacement difficult. It's not the software. I'm sure that a very large majority of people here could write that in a reasonable amount of time.
But the software isn't really the main value that Bandcamp provides. For a service to replace Bandcamp, it needs to be trustworthy and have a track record of doing right by both artists (and mostly small indie artists) and audiences. That takes time.
While the core technology may not be as 'complicated' as quantum computing, the unique challenges in execution, user engagement, and market fit should not be underestimated, simple is hard ya'll... The real value and are far from trivial to replicate and come from the people.... no offense just sayin' this is a funny pattern around here.
In before the true scotsman of software lifecycles.
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.
That is why I'm wondering if the new owner doesn't care about what makes basecamp work and just wants to use all of basecamp data for its "AI" business. Otherwise you're left with another owner who doesn't understand what they bought.
https://www.songtradr.com/blog/posts/ai-metadata-better-sear...
Which data specifically? The music itself belongs to the artists and labels, which leaves us with the user activity data, but that must be acquirable much cheaper with larger amount of data elsewhere. Also the data would be tailored to indie/electronic music, rather than applicable to pop music, so the usefulness of even user activity data seems kind of low.
I couldn't imagine who you might be referring to! /snark
What is the difference of your service with eg. Deezer? Someone in another thread mentioned it offers lossless DRM-free downloads these days.
Cory Doctorow talks about using Ulysses pacts like this to protect against future bad behavior, but I’m wondering, what is the strength of the pact?
That's a long way of saying what you said: I want it to protect against future enshittification. I want it to work.
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 still using the old office space, and are seated where they were before? - Are salaries or work contracts near-identical? - ... and then some.
If you get a couple of "yes" here, you now are in a world of pain: In this case the whole transaction is regarded as a (not sure if that is a good translation of the German word "verdeckter Betriebsübergang") "hidden transfer of business", and you would suddenly automatically get ALL employees and benefits back, with no easy option to fire anyone afterwards. If someone had been at the previous company for 10 years, it legally would now be also have been employed for 10 years with the new company.
This is why the asset deal trick to get rid of employees is only done by very uneducated managers over here :)
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.
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.
As with many labor protection laws, it is a mixed bag. Basically the regulation I have mentioned tries to separate the cases of "true asset deal" vs. "fake asset deal". That works most of the times, but sometimes an asset deal that was supposed to serve a genuinely good cause (one business trying to sell off a technology to another) to later got flagged as a transfer of business by courts, causing companies to go bankrupt, with ALL jobs being lost.
Being an employer myself, I once got bitten with wrongly getting flagged when trying to rescue the technology my shareholders had financially run into the ground, but a higher court later corrected that and decided that the motivation of the asset deal had been proper.
Does you "free market" allow for individuals to "organize" as a "corporation" and does the "corporation" provide legal immunities for civil liabilities and personal debts (that "personal property" concept).
If so does your "free market" allow for other individuals to "organize" as a "union" - and does that "union" provide various legal guarantees and immunities etc.
"Free market" people love the corporation but hate the union. One is a legal fiction for rich people and one is a legal fiction for poor people.
Following that, why did Epic choose to get rid of a successful, profitable, independent sub-company that would have helped keep Epic profitable?
It sure looks like Bandcamp was already failing and unprofitable, and selling out to Epic was a desperate attempt to keep the company alive. Songtradr seems to agree with Epic that bandcamp is not solvent and cannot continue operating as it was.
This sucks because Bandcamp is great, but it's not hard to see the writing on the wall. All Epic did here is inject cash into bandcamp's corpse to keep it alive for an extra year or two, before it had to cut the IV drip.
Epic basically bought Bandcamp, hung out with it for a bit, then sold it to Songtradr who promptly shot it in the head as soon as Epic turned around.
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, unionized enterprises lose to Tesla.
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 employees, this means the bad times are also amortised by the workers as well.
It is not perfect but it is not a zero-sum game which keeps both sides more aligned. I wish I could have had a 10% raise to match inflation, but I have been getting ~1% raises above inflation for the past several years so it kinda makes up for it.
If I understand correctly, this isn't true. There are laws that make this effectively true, but that's not quite the same thing.
For example, secondary boycotts are banned. This limits the rights of workers and unions to freely associate and mobilize for their interests. That little doozy was rationalized by the excuse of protecting the economy (read: the status quo).
Ianal, and idk if this is a distinction without a difference; but it seems worth pointing out.
AFAIR Tesla follows the typical US corporation stance of "kill it with fire" against unions. A sick version of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"
If companies were less abusive and not ran by sociopaths in the US we wouldn't see the acceleration of unionization like we are.
how does that work?
There are some unions for IT personnel, but they aren't very popular or well-known.
There's also the mandatory employee representation (called the Ondernemingsraad in Dutch); every company over 50 employees is required to have one of those. But again, this is rare in IT companies. In part because a few companies I've worked for, IT providers / consultancies, use the 'cell division' tactic (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celfilosofie), where a company is divided up into smaller cells of at most 50 people, either by geographic location or specialism, each operating as their own company (on paper).
On the surface this is clever because it means the colleagues will be able to know everyone, or a department is specialized, or a company's finances is more secure. But underneath, it means no cell will ever become large enough to require employee representation. On the surface there is no need because everyone is paid and treated well, but at the same time, another one of these was sold to investors and has shifted course, buying up companies across europe now. I think employees would like to have a say in that, but that's not good for the owners / shareholders.
What happens during lay-off is they just present the OR with multiple plans.
Plans which include more people laid off but leaving departments where the OR members are in out of it versus plans which effect less people but which included departments which included the OR members themselves. Good chance people will choose self preservation over the greater good. I've seen it happen at companies.
It sounds exactly like America then.
Honestly I feel like it just must be egotistical powerful men who don’t want to lose control over those they see as beneath them, to the point that they’re willing to do the wrong thing from a business point of view.
[0]: https://www.cwu.org/
There's also IWGB Game Workers for relevant workers https://www.gameworkers.co.uk/
If the corporation refuses to cooperate (and this seems to be the norm), the union's only option is to fight.
But yeah, unions, hate what you gotta hate. I personally hate long hours for bullshit pay.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-sector_trade_unions_in_... for background.
> Moe points out that Roosevelt, "an ardent supporter of collective bargaining in the private sector, was opposed to it in the public sector."[11] Roosevelt in 1937 told the nation what the position of his government was:
>> All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters. Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.[12]
This does not seem compatible with all the stories I've heard about underpaid teachers having to buy material for their students out of their own pocket. I'm sure it somehow ends up both being true in a twisted way, but it still sounds strange.
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 charter schools from eating away at public school funding, or to restore some of the pension benefits that were taken away in the eighties. [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32542324 (I am delighted to report that the "Nobody wants to teach anymore" comments are up to 666 points exactly at this moment in time)
We are a bootstrapped team of musicians, loyal to independent music so we want out platform to stay that way.
We're also hiring: https://formaviva.com/jobs
PS: I'm one of the team members
From the "Terms of Service":
> Unless otherwise stated, Samorastnik d.o.o. and/or its licensors own the intellectual property rights for all material on Formaviva.
Where's the "otherwise" for people that post music on your platform?
I was actually searching for your legal status (which kind of legal persona you are and in which jurisdiction). I couldn't find a thing on your website.
Any potential ambiguity in the TOS will related to your concern will be thoroughly assessed.
The company information has been added to the TOS page as well.
Perhaps you haven't had a chance to arrive there yet, but we will take your comment as a recommendation for the improvement, which will be implemented in the coming days so that also "law-oriented music lovers" will be pleased with the law-confirming evolution.
> "On Monday, October 16, 2023 over half of Bandcamp was laid off as a result of Epic Games’ divestiture to Songtradr,” Bandcamp United said in a statement. “Of those laid off, 40 were in the union bargaining unit out of a total 67 members. None of the eight (8) democratically elected bargaining team members received a job offer."
I can't be bothered to work out the odds on that happening randomly but by intuition is that it's not super unlikely. Especially when you consider that the kinds of people who have time to lead a union are likely to be the kinds of people without important jobs.
Also can't they just elect new leaders?
The meeting does sound suss though.
... Wow. That's something you'd never hear in Europe (outside of a golf course, at least).
For the record, leading a union is an important job, and all that's required to want the job is a sense of fairness.
In reality, many people balance multiple responsibilities, including leadership roles in unions alongside demanding jobs.
The statement undermines the significance and complexity of leading a union. Union leadership often requires strategic thinking, negotiation skills, and a strong understanding of labor laws, which many would consider important skills.
People with high-responsibility jobs may still prioritize union involvement because they see it as a vital activity that aligns with their career or personal values.
Stereotyping people who are involved in union leadership as having anunimportant job is a damn near uniquely American notion. It's the result of decades of mind-warping propaganda.
Well I am in Europe and don't play golf.
> The statement undermines the significance and complexity of leading a union. Union leadership often requires strategic thinking, negotiation skills, and a strong understanding of labor laws, which many would consider important skills.
I think you misunderstood. I didn't say that leading a union isn't important. If anything I said the opposite! Leading a union is a lot of work. People who have a high profile or very busy job just aren't going to have time for it.
> is a damn near uniquely American notion. It's the result of decades of mind-warping propaganda.
I am not American.
Divide first, by implying that some class of workers are not worthy of collective bargaining agreements.
Then conquer, because unions aren't powerful.
For instance, blue-collar professions do not have much of these, so being out of any agreement would be a huge disadvantage for the worker; for technology in general (talking here about software engineers specifically, I do not know other workers in tech) an union would be beneficial but not critical since this professional has some of the attributes described above.
