Bandcamp Union files Unfair Labor Practice violation against new ownership

[thomdunn]

Originally published at: Bandcamp Union files Unfair Labor Practice violation against new ownership | Boing Boing

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[Malarkey]

@thomdunn

“There is a strong piece in white-collar tech workers who make north of 70k a year appropriating the language of the legitimately oppressed for anyone with the guts to write it,” Keyes wrote in an Instagram stories post in May, shortly after Bandcamp workers voted 31 – 7, overwhelmingly in favor of forming a union. “TL;DR: Fuuuuuck Bandcamp United.”

I’ve been a tech worker for over 40 years. The unpaid overtime is brutal.

[t3knomanser]

Oh, guess I’m not buying anything from Bandcamp in the near future. Pity, because I really liked shopping there versus pretty much anywhere else. I’ll just have to make do with the extensive library I have on my Plex server.

Also, extra fuck you to that exec for trying the old “white collar labor isn’t actually labor and doesn’t share interests with labor,” line. All labor needs to stand in solidarity.

[angusm]

I went on an absolute buying orgy on Friday, which was – officially at least – Bandcamp Friday. The promise of Bandcamp Friday is that 100% of sales go to the artists. I wouldn’t put it past the new owners to retrospectively renege on that promise, though, so I may have unwittingly put money in their pockets.

I certainly don’t expect Bandcamp Friday to be a thing in 2024, so if you have anything you want, Friday December 1st is likely to be your last chance. And if you have made purchases in the past, now is the time to download absolutely EVERYTHING you have bought in all the formats you think you might ever want, and BACK IT UP, because the cost-cutting is going to start soon. I’m sure the new owners have already figured they can save a lot on storage costs by getting rid of FLAC downloads, for instance.

[Mister44]

I rarely buy new music, or new to me music, but when I do, I try to do it on Bandcamp Friday.

I did it just this Friday, as PIG is re-releasing the PIG vs KMFDM Sin, Sex, & Salvation EP. Secret Skin is a fantastic song of that era. I even have the Japanese version of the EP, which has a mix that will be available in the US for the first time on this EP.

Anyway, it sucks that corporate tech bros are going to fuck up an entity a lot of smaller artists depend on

ETA - Hrm forum software doesn’t seem to want to show the URL, probably due to the URL name. Here is the album cover.

[angusm]

I posted something about going to a KMFDM show and a friend-of-a-friend responded with the following meme.

I wish I’d known about the PIG vs. KMFDM re-release on Friday, as that would have gone in my shopping cart. If Bandcamp Friday is still a thing in December, I might need to fix that.

[fuzzyfungus]

@thomdunn

“There is a strong piece in white-collar tech workers who make north of 70k a year appropriating the language of the legitimately oppressed for anyone with the guts to write it,”

It takes a certain amount of nerve to pretend that people whose compensation is largely wages rather than capital gains aren’t “labor”.

Choosing $70k, though, seems just egregiously gutsy, in that it implicitly concedes that there may be a layer of ‘salaried’ that still falls within the scope of unionization; but that a few tens of thousands a year is all it takes to pull you out of it.

[Simon_Clift]

@t3knomanser

Oh, guess I’m not buying anything from Bandcamp in the near future.

So these guys have just sorted out their tax maze issues and will sell music to me. They aren’t Bandcamp, but from a chat I just had with them, they want to be…

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