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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

Judging by the Bandcamp United's (Union about to form at Bandcamp) feed, it seems they were nearing the completion of their initial steps to ask SongTradr to recognize and negotiate with the union. The "Last Call" post was made just 4 days ago: https://union.place/@bandcampunited/111219165521125342

Wonder if it ever got started or SongTradr tried to nip this whole thing in the bud?

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Could this be considered a union busting action? Especially if the union was planning to negotiate for remote work.

Edit: previously said strike breaking instead of union busting.

Perhaps not, if the union is not yet recognized.

A union does not need to be recognized for anti-union actions to be illegal. There are a lot of protections in place around the protection of the worker's right to unionize, and if you get anywhere close to infringement you're in for a world of hurt.

If the union / workers attempting to form a union can demonstrate that the company knew about the union, and show that the action adversely affected the ability of the workers to unionize, then they definitely have a pretty strong foundation for a lawsuit.

> if you get anywhere close to infringement you're in for a world of hurt.

I wouldn't hold my breath [1] about that.

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+nlrb+violation

Don't be too sure about that - things have changed just recently:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/02/union-nlrb-d...

> Perhaps not, if the union is not yet recognized.

That's incorrect. Most of the rights afforded by the NLRA actually apply regardless of whether or not a union exists; a union is simply a formal structure for exercising those rights.

In this case, firing employees could be considered retaliatory action. Retaliatory action is illegal regardless of whether or not the union has been recognized (in fact, it is illegal to retaliate against employees for supporting a union even if there is not sufficient support for the union to call an election).

I love this legalizing and philosophizing. Bottom line is half the employees lost their jobs, and even if there is some sort of anti-union or NLRB-initiated action here, it will be years before there's a fine or lawsuit. By then the business will be unrecognizable.

It doesn't matter. The employees should be made whole eventually

Which is why vicious, "take the company out back and Ol' Yeller it" level approaches should be the norm for the NLRB. Make examples of a few high-profile companies, and eventually negotiating with a union will appear more appealing than risking the consequences of union busting.

> Could this be considered a strike breaking action? Especially if the union was planning to negotiate for remote work.

Yes, it could be considered retaliation via constructive dismissal without cause. In theory the NLRB could force remediations including but not limited to reinstatement of position (ie, hiring them back). If the NLRB decides that the terminations were intended to break support for recognizing the union, the NLRB has the authority to force automatic recognition without an election.

That's assuming the union pursues that case, of course, and the whole process takes months.

SongTradr needs demonstrate that Bandcamp wasn't financially viable and thus layoffs were coming regardless of unionization attempts. They acquired BandCamp two weeks ago and layoffs post-acquisition are extremely common.

NLRB can't do shit.

> SongTradr needs demonstrate that Bandcamp wasn't financially viable

That's provably false.

> He notes that, according to its co-founder, Ethan Diamond, Bandcamp has been profitable since 2012.

> In addition, Bandcamp charges its customers (indie artists) just 10-15% commission rates as a retailer – and on Bandcamp Fridays, it charges nothing at all.

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/podcast/is-this-the-r... "Is this the real reason Epic Games acquired Bandcamp?"

https://towardsdatascience.com/why-is-bandcamp-profitable-an... "Why is Bandcamp profitable and Spotify not?"

This is pre Epic acquisition, and they seemed mostly hands of in their approach.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BandCamp/comments/11g0c07/its_the_o... "It’s the one year anniversary of Bandcamp’s acquisition by Epic."

> That's provably false.

Then why did Epic sell this veritable cashcow?

"to focus on its core metaverse, games, and tools efforts.”

https://pitchfork.com/news/epic-games-sells-bandcamp-amid-la...

Probably because the employees wanted to unionize.

Theoretically could be considered union-busting. But since the company was just acquired (likely sold due to poor performance and almost certainly being reorganized) there is very good plausible deniability.

Looks like it, Starbucks has a tendency to suddenly close stores in areas where unions are attempted. Doesn't seem to matter to them if the store was doing well or not.

Around here (near Seattle) they are having to explain why the foam floor mats behind the counter used for anti-fatigue were removed as trip hazards, but only in stores attempting to unionize...

I destroyed my back working without mats in the resturant industry. Every winter I get back pain and have to use a cane for a few weeks. Use mats if you are going to stand somewhere 8+ hours a day kids.

I have those mats in my kitchen as a normal person who only spends at most a couple of hours in there a day.

What kind of mats are those?

They look like this: https://www.amazon.com/ROVSUN-Anti-Fatigue-Drainage-Non-Slip...

Thanks! So why do you think does it help with your back pain?

Do shoes with absorption work to a similar effect?

Not completely, a big part of the problem is resturant floors tend to get wet. When I first injured my back I slipped on a damp greasy floor.

If I had a mat like that I wouldn't have slipped.

practically, mats can be much thicker

I'm not going to get into the why's at Starbucks, but I worked retail years ago and one person insisted on having a standing mat, and I tripped over that thing -all- the time.

Just get more comfortable shoes. As ugly as Crocs type shoes are, my back pain disappeared when I started wearing them. They don't -have- to be gaudy, I wear the Santa Cruz often which just looks like a typical loafer. They also make 'work shoes', which are apparently loved by nurses...

I've worked behind the counter in a similar job to Starbucks while in high school and college. Shoes were not an end-all-be-all solution. Anti-fatigue mats helped significantly in my case.

It's a power move to show any store can be shut down, and probably quite an effective method at that.

Starbucks has lost several cases related to NLRA violations. You can find more information searching "Starbucks NLRA", but here are a couple

https://www.hrdive.com/news/starbucks-how-we-communicate-pol...

https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-region-3-...

>Could this be considered a strike breaking action?

"Strike breaking" is a different epithet, you're looking for "union busting". Nobody at Bandcamp is on strike.

Thanks. Not a lot of sleep this weekend.

It also could be a purely financial decision. Bandcamp claimed $51m in revenue (I assume gross?) in 2016 [1] and, per reporting, had about $20m in net revenue in 2022 [2]. With the reported 210 employees, that's $95k in net revenue (not profit -- wages / costs are not yet accounted for) per employee. That is very low. You could easily see an acquirer wanting to be more profitable and cutting things like editorial.

[1] https://blog.bandcamp.com/2016/05/19/bandcamp-downloads-stre...

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/90951664/bandcamp-spotify-vinyl-...

Not sure who's getting laid off, but for me in the past the Bandcamp Weekly show was the one that gave me opportunities to explore new genres and artists. I think their shows have a positive impact towards the platforms, buyers, and artists.

Agreed. It’s one of the best music shows out there. Selfishly I hope Andrew Jervis wasn’t laid off but realistically it’s hard to imagine everything continuing as before with 50% of the company gone.

100% really hope Andrew Jervis is able to keep his show going. So much of the music that I keep coming back to is music that I discovered through his show!

It should be ok to not be exceedingly profitable. Bandcamp produced loads of amazing valuable content. But greedy maniacs will always hate this. I am reminded of the Craigslist leadership who was mad insulted for the conscious decision to impose an upper bound to their growth which is a refreshingly moral thing to do under capitalism

If the median wage you can pay is capped at maybe $70k-ish, it's delusional to call someone a "greedy maniac".

median ... capped ... does not compute.

I'm excited for this vein of Leftism to end. We're seeing the DSA get chucklefucked due to their 10/7 Attack response, and we're seeing their NIMBY allies get chucklefucked in the legislatures.

Hopefully some new, more productive and positive ideology emerges.

I don't understand how people can say things like this where companies don't even make a profit like uber year after year yet no one wonders why they have the shop they do.

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