[HN Gopher] Bandcamp Unionizes
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Bandcamp Unionizes
Author : panic
Score : 123 points
Date : 2023-03-16 21:30 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bandcampunited.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bandcampunited.org)
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| Hope this union will voice out any possible changes in Bandcamp's
| organisation which can hurt the common creator using the
| platform, even though I understand this is absolutely not the
| goal of creating one.
|
| It will be a bleak day when BC hits the skids, as inevitably
| happens with any such service (unless not backed by a solid non-
| profit).
| solarkraft wrote:
| I hope it'll last another few years. It's a great platform.
| ineptech wrote:
| Can anyone involved describe, perhaps more frankly than the
| linked site, what drove this? I think of unions as typically
| being a response to some kind of abusive behavior from
| management, and am wondering what it is in this case. Most of the
| specifics described seem like stuff that is common in tech
| companies already (eg good pay and benefits) or stuff that sounds
| hard to enforce (eg input into company direction).
| gen220 wrote:
| I'm not involved, but they were recently sold to Epic Games,
| which, I imagine, represents a fairly large shift in character
| of management. It might be a defensive move to protect the
| worker culture that evolved before then.
| waboremo wrote:
| IMO this stems from the massive layoffs across the field
| which align more closely with timing here than the
| acquisition and change of management. Not that either are
| exclusive reasons.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Unions are not necessarily a response to bad management. Often
| they can be because the workers want to force the good
| management to stay good.
|
| It's far more effective to unionize when things are going well
| rather than when things are going bad.
| iworshipfaangs2 wrote:
| But good pay and benefits can be taken at any time in a right-
| to-work state. And the pay is not consistent or transparent to
| quote adjectives from that section.
| thylacine222 wrote:
| I think you mean at-will employment, right-to-work usually
| refers to bans on union security agreements.
| wootland wrote:
| I wonder if there can be more ephemeral union like entities that
| help the labor market. I'd love to see a community that helps
| people organize strikes and coordinate between multiple
| companies. Strikes are one of the strongest tools a union has,
| but you don't _need_ a union to organize them. It feels like we
| have the technology to create ad-hoc unions and support general
| labor advocacy and direct action without the need for a formal
| union (not saying they are necessarily bad).
| thylacine222 wrote:
| Every few years someone thinks that they have a new plan to
| revolutionize labor organizing, usually involving some sort of
| app that will somehow replace the work necessary to organize a
| union, and they are always wrong. Building a union that's
| strike-ready requires a lot of on the ground work that you
| simply cannot automate.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| wildcat strikes, which you're describing, are illegal in the
| united states.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Only because the govt promised to protect unions. They're not
| really keeping their side of the promise.
| wootland wrote:
| Wildcat strikes aren't illegal if you're not in a union:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_strike_action#Legality
| unreal37 wrote:
| It's not a wildcat strike if you're not in a union. It's
| just refusing to show up to work.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| But if it's an organized effort in order to get
| management to do something, it is a strike
| kevviiinn wrote:
| Not sure why you think that, here's the first line from
| your source
|
| >Wildcat strikes have been considered illegal in the United
| States since 1935
|
| Sounds to me like the only time it becomes legal is if you
| _were_ in a union and then leave while still employed at
| the same place
| wootland wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > _Nevertheless, US workers can formally request that the
| National Labor Relations Board end their association with
| their labor union if they feel that the union is not
| adequately representing their interests. At this point,
| any strike action taken by the workers may be termed a
| wildcat strike, but there is no illegality involved, as
| there is no longer a conflict between sections 7 and 9(a)
| of the NLRA._
| kevviiinn wrote:
| That is described by the last part of my comment, it is
| only legal under a very specific circumstance and not
| generally
| juujian wrote:
| And even if they were illegal, there are so many creative
| ways to stage action that do not _technically_ constitute a
| strike.
| rodgerd wrote:
| > I'd love to see a community that helps people organize
| strikes and coordinate between multiple companies.
|
| Unfortunately solidarity strikes were so successful for workers
| for much of the 20th century, they were criminalised in parts
| of the English-speaking world from the 80s onward.
| [deleted]
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| There are exceptions, but strikes are usually the result of an
| _organized_ group of workers exhausting other bargaining
| options. Strikes are the result of very intentional, long
| periods of organizing. They (usually) don 't happen all of a
| sudden. Barring something egregious, strikes are hard to pull
| off and requires a lot of buy in.
|
| The most successful way to accomplish this level of organizing
| is forming a union.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| awesome work to the organizers and congratulations to the
| employees!
| [deleted]
| iworshipfaangs2 wrote:
| This is an interesting place for this to come from, since
| bandcamp has really been a model for fairness in how artists can
| distribute their work and get paid. And it was sadly recently
| bought by Epic Games. I know nothing about Epic, but I know the
| game industry is far from the paragon of fair labor or fair
| content distribution. I wish them luck.
| jszymborski wrote:
| > And it was sadly recently bought by Epic Games.
|
| I wasn't aware of that, that deeply sucks. Bandcamp was the
| premiere place for me to buy DRM-free music and know my money
| was going to the artist at a transparent and fair price.
|
| Unionising certainly seems especially important for these folks
| in light of that, I wish them all the very best.
| stonepresto wrote:
| I think as it currently stands that's still the case, however
| with Epic at the helm there's indeed a high risk of negative
| changes.
| [deleted]
| tarkin2 wrote:
| Unionisation, I'd wager, will come to the tech world a lot more.
|
| No one cared about unions when they could easily find new jobs.
|
| Now that's not so certain with the rise of AI.
| warbeforepeace wrote:
| The rise of AI isn't causing a drop in tech jobs. Its the crazy
| over hiring that happened during 2020/2021, the lack of
| confidence in the economy, and rising interest rates.
|
| The AI boom overall will most likely add more jobs to tech with
| everyone wanting to invest resources in it.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It's not even something as speculative as AI. Just not having
| ZIRP has changed the game.
| f6v wrote:
| I bet people said the same about AI when Watson won Jeopardy. A
| more real catalyst could be the recent tech sector cooldown.
| The again, would someone dare unionizing when your position
| could be cut.
| [deleted]
| eikenberry wrote:
| I wish non-union worker organizations would get more traction,
| not everything really works well in the labor union model. Eg.
| professional workers more traditionally organized into guilds yet
| I've never seen any movements toward organizing modern
| professions into guilds.
| thylacine222 wrote:
| What's an example of a non-union worker organization that
| you've seen work well for its members?
| anticensor wrote:
| Professional trade associations, such as chambers of
| engineers.
| thylacine222 wrote:
| I noticed you were from Turkey -- I've never heard of the
| phrasing "chamber of engineers", but from Wikipedia, it
| sounds to be a kind of labor union: https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Union_of_Chambers_of_Turkish_E...
| eikenberry wrote:
| I'm not sure as I don't belong to any of these but here are
| some examples (US) that seem like they "work well"... Screen
| Actors, Directors, Writers all have guilds. Real-estate and
| Lawyers have decent looking guilds, they just don't call them
| by name. Doctors, Dentists and Nurses also have guilds (they
| call them associations).
| thylacine222 wrote:
| SAG, DGA, and WGA are all labor unions. The other cases
| I'll grant you, but it's less clear what their direct
| benefit to their members is besides acting as lobbying
| organizations.
| jurimasa wrote:
| Same difference. It's just the Pavlovian anti-anything-
| smelling-of-socialism reflex most people have.
| gen220 wrote:
| Having thought a bit about the space, I agree! I think we could
| gain a lot by organizing as a guild.
|
| That being said, if you have the knowledge-working talent,
| organizational skills, ambition, and reputation necessary to
| start a successful guild, you can make a lot more money as a
| consultant, and money is a powerful motivator.
|
| I think if, as an economy, we were geared more towards quality
| and building for the long-term, a software guild would emerge
| more naturally. We've optimized for a different system, that
| doesn't much reward the differential outputs of a guild-like
| association. Reasonable people can disagree on the relative
| merits of this system. :)
| [deleted]
| pauldbourke wrote:
| "The music and tech industries are at a juncture, and it's time
| that we as workers have a seat at the table to weigh in on the
| challenges and opportunities of this moment."
|
| Can someone explain this in plain english?
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Is this not plain english? Pretty boilerplate copy for this
| kind of thing honestly. Is there a specific word you are having
| trouble with?
| iworshipfaangs2 wrote:
| I don't really understand "juncture", but money flows in the
| music and tech industries is changing, so it is nice if the
| people that produce the work make sure a good amount of money
| flows to them.
| [deleted]
| thornewolf wrote:
| The music and tech industries are undergoing large changes and
| we need to make decisions NOW to make sure the industry stays
| healthy. We are unionizing to make sure that us workers are
| part of the decision making process.
| swatcoder wrote:
| The union might literally want a seat reserved on the board, at
| licensing and terms negotiations, etc -- to make sure the
| company stays/moves in a direction that employees support and
| that doesn't squander employee loyalty in agreements that
| negatively impact them.
| tmtvl wrote:
| They want a say in certain decisions being made at the higher
| levels.
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(page generated 2023-03-16 23:00 UTC)