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).
> 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.
"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."
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is simply risible to pretend that the tech-industry has not created a new generation of piece-workers. Or that conditions cannot be bad (even unacceptable) in a well-paid and otherwise privileged job.
Perhaps you simply lack insight to realise that by writing this comment you have become the thing my comment was mocking? :)
"You Gladiators, look at the purse awarded to you! And you call yourself a common slave! It is an insult to the slaves who toil in the mines!"
28 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 71.9 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_strike_action#Legality
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.
Can someone explain this in plain english?
It’s far more effective to unionize when things are going well rather than when things are going bad.
No one cared about unions when they could easily find new jobs.
Now that's not so certain with the rise of AI. (Edit: and all these redundancies, yes)
The AI boom overall will most likely add more jobs to tech with everyone wanting to invest resources in it.
It is simply risible to pretend that the tech-industry has not created a new generation of piece-workers. Or that conditions cannot be bad (even unacceptable) in a well-paid and otherwise privileged job.
Perhaps you simply lack insight to realise that by writing this comment you have become the thing my comment was mocking? :)
"You Gladiators, look at the purse awarded to you! And you call yourself a common slave! It is an insult to the slaves who toil in the mines!"