Bandcamp United Interview

While I was writing my article discussing the state of Spotify and Bandcamp, I reached out to Bandcamp United for some comments on the issue. I spoke with Ed. Blaire, part of the democratically elected bargaining team of Bandcamp United, and after our conversation, both I and the Orpheus staff thought it would pair as an excellent interview to provide extra insight and context for the article. So here are some excerpts from our conversation.

Ed. Blaire (they/them)

Bandcamp United Union Bargainer

TRISTAN: Looking over what SongTradr does as a company, it seems to be a lot of music licensing and advertising to companies and I was wondering how does the union feel about Bandcamp getting involved in music licensing? 

ED: I don’t think the Union has an official position on that, I think to me personally speaking as someone who worked at Bandcamp, also before I worked at Bandcamp I was a freelancer for Bandcamp Daily, I had been involved in the company for a hot second and I think one of the things that always really resonated to me was that Bandcamp was a place where it felt like, through the efforts of folks at Bandcamp Daily and people who worked there, that music was not a commodity necessarily. Bandcamp existed as a marketplace because we live in capitalism but the vibe for a lot of folks was like how do we make things as equitable for artists as possible.

Artists are under a lot of financial pressure right now, the cost of living increases every year… In a lot of ways, like in DIY culture, it is still working on structures that were built in the 80s, and a $5 DIY show is not a feasible thing for anybody. That’s not to say that the financial crunch is people who want to pay only $5 for a show, it’s just that the opportunities for musicians to have security have changed really drastically in the past couple of decades (and not just musicians). It is worrisome to see a shift towards a more commodity-based view of music [...] this isn’t a conversation about selling-out, it just feels like the realities of being a musician, especially as COVID continues to be a thing, I don’t feel like everyone should have to have their song in a Taco Bell ad to make rent. That kind of feels like where we are, it’s a little disheartening on a personal level, it feels like a very different worldview than the one I understood as a Bandcamp employee.

TRISTAN: Regarding this, when I was doing a lot of the research for my previous article and this one, I’ve noticed that pretty much every single news outlet, no matter who they are, uses a Spotify payment system, assuming that they pay artists per stream (which I know Spotify continues to refute and say that they don’t). I was wondering if you have any thoughts on how this is impacting the public’s view of how artists are being paid.

ED: I’m going to say that, obviously as someone who formerly worked at a music marketplace website, I am aware of Spotify, I don’t know that I can speak to their music payment structure. My understanding generally is that Spotify and Apple Music and Tidal and these larger streaming services are designed to benefit their biggest customers who are major labels. And that structure only works if you’re part of that structure. One of the things that I do remember seeing was Spotify changing their rules so that people with less streams might not be monetized at all, for instance, is a way that smaller artists and indie artists and folks are being pushed out of those compensation options.

That again was one of the things that I really loved about Bandcamp, shout out the Daily, who did their best to shine a light on things that weren’t always readily available to most of the folks doing music journalism, and the way the website was structured, I’m sure I’m not the only person who would just click around at genres and be like “is there anything new in punk.” In that way, it felt like, you know, it’s not exactly the record store experience but you’re still getting that, “oh this cover’s sick!” and I just feel like that discoverability doesn't really exist on other streaming services, and I would argue probably by design, because they are not music discovery services, they are, you know, in the same way like Netflix and all these other streaming services started out being like “oh look all this new stuff you can watch” and now it’s like, “do you want to watch The Office again?” There’s a real focus on comfort and familiarity.

TRISTAN: Onto the union—I’m personally curious, what is like bargaining in and for a union?

ED: I mean I only have this experience to speak from, I’ve been involved in other nascent organizing efforts but nothing that progressed in the way that this did. I think, this sounds corny, but in many ways it’s the great honor of my life. We elected our bargaining committee via a democratic voting process, so like this wasn’t just a position that I just signed up for, being on the bargaining committee is something that people in the union were like “oh, these are the people who should be on it” and I take that responsibility really heavily.

You know, we formed Bandcamp United because we deeply care about Bandcamp. We are invested in the success of it as a tool for artists; people at Bandcamp United run record labels, they put out music scenes, they are in bands, they are learning instruments, they go to shows, they buy the t-shirts, etc etc. In some ways, I’m sure you’ve seen the coverage of this like “what does the future hold for Bandcamp” like the music industry holds its breath and that responsibility is something we all are really aware of and that responsibility extended to like our coworkers.

This situation is not [...] I’m really frustrated and I’m disappointed to see the sort of [...] like we were bargaining our first contract, we bargaining in good faith with Epic Games, we were making progress, you know, one of the internal values of Bandcamp was artists first, like when you are making decisions, you are always trying to think about how this benefits your clientbase and we got that enshrined in our union contract. That was something that we tentatively agreed to with management and it’s really frustrating to see how Epic and Songtradr sort of push that progress to the side, you know, Songtradr has not agreed to recognize the union, has not agreed to pick up where we left off in bargaining, and they laid off the whole bargaining committee.

TRISTAN: I was going to ask about that, I heard about that a little.

ED: I can speak to that a little bit too. We are a cross team, there are engineers, there are support people, across the company the bargaining committee represented people from all these different departments, people of different tenure, of different experience, and it just seems like Songtradr has been like “this is based on performance” and etcetera and even thinking about all that stuff, it statistically does not make sense that all of us would have been laid off. The chances of that being a random thing that they would do are infinitesimally small, and that, in some ways, these are people who are so invested in this company that they stepped up to be part of union leadership and I just think of that as a loss, you know?

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t still great people at Bandcamp, this is not an us versus them situation, but it is like, when you get rid of part of a staff, there is a loss and it is very confusing to me. I know one of the things they keep saying publicly is that Bandcamp was not profitable and they want to make Bandcamp profitable. I can’t speak to the actual financials, management has always been very opaque around that with us, but layoffs are expensive. They are morale killers, you lose an incredible amount of institutional knowledge.

In this case, most of the support team was laid off and there is an operational cost to that. Bandcamp support, which is what I did at Bandcamp, was not like any other support job I ever had. Bandcamp has a very specific set of internal tools that they built, there’s not a lot of, at least in my experience, transferability of other skills. It’s a very particular system, and you are dealing with a dual customer space, both people buying music and selling music and there’s just an immense amount of knowledge you need to do that job. We were around 14-15 people strong and three people are left and that’s just an incredible reduction, like even if you are getting other people from the company to pitch in, they are not trained to do that job so just even in terms of operational costs, it does not make sense to me.

Again, I’m not a business person, I don’t have access to the numbers, but I know how much I made [...] it feels like a very… if it is not an attempt to specifically curtail the power and influence of Bandcamp United, it doesn’t make sense to me as a numerical thing. One of the reasons I’m so passionate about organizing in tech specifically is that, precarity exists across all sectors at this point, but tech especially it really feels like layoffs are a thing that everyone acts like they are unpreventable, every CEO is like “we did everything we could” and it’s like did you? Did you take a pay cut? Did you get rid of your bonus? Does anyone at C-Suite level (upper level management, i.e. CEO, COO, CFO) lose their job because of the bad decisions you made? No, it’s just the people at the bottom.

Throughout this, I feel really thankful that we won our union because Epic has to deal with us about layoff and severance, they have to come to the table, they have to come to an agreement with us on what we are going to accept for severance. And that is a really meaningful thing. This is a really awful situation in a lot of ways but also we are able to fight to protect each other and support each other and try to get the best deal possible. I am endlessly thankful for being in a union, I remain hopeful that we are going to be able to continue this work at Songtradr, I don’t know if you saw but the union did file an unpaid labor practice, specifically around the bargaining committee not getting offers, so I am interested to see where that goes, we are talking through other strategy around that kind of stuff. It is really disappointing that both of these companies decided to behave in this way. Again, it just doesn’t really make a lot of logical sense to me, and it makes me concerned about the future for Bandcamp if it is a non-unionized workplace.

TRISTAN: So following up with some of those layoffs and the hiring dynamics; Bandcamp United has reported specifically about hiring rates among Black and trans/non-binary/gender nonconforming individuals and the disparities between those hiring rates and others. I was wondering, obviously this is all very nebulous right now and there’s no telling what’s to come, like if people get their jobs back or if the layoffs persist but following these layoffs, what are your thoughts on changes in the working environment with these specific groups having such drastic reductions in their numbers?

ED: Again, I think it points to sort of the way that people with the least are often forced to bear the brunt of these poor management decisions. Like, there are a lot of ways that racism and transphobia and misogyny and all these different forms of bigotry persist, especially in tech. For instance, it is really common for different marginalized groups to be performance managed different ways because people perceive anger where there is [...], I think the most basic example is when you talk about the way that women are often viewed in the workplace, where if she’s aggressive, it is construed as being “bitchy” and that’s like a really easy example but stuff like that exists constantly, for all different sorts of marginalized groups.

That’s really one of the things we are trying to point to, that there are these systemic inequalities, not just in tech, but specifically in our workplace and it’s frustrating to see those inequalities seemingly grow throughout this process. Again, a lot of the folks still at Bandcamp are very thoughtful, kind, incredible folks, it is hard to see so many other deeply kind, deeply incredible folks not being extended offers and for it to continue to exacerbate the issues folks already are facing. I can’t really speak to what conditions are at Bandcamp right now, I’ve talked to folks who are still there but it seems like a lot of stuff is still up in the air, I couldn’t answer how things have changed if you are a trans person there, for instance. Again, it really is, no matter how you slice it, the idea that this was based purely on performance just doesn’t seem to add up to me. And I think that’s sort of the other part of this. Are you saying all these folks were performing less than their peers potentially? And if so, I wonder if anyone was considering the ways that marginalized folks are often pushed into positions and not given the support that other people are or the chance to fail that other people are. It’s just messy and again, just really disappointing that these sorts of disparities were just sort of exacerbated throughout this process.

TRISTAN: So when and why did you all at Bandcamp or Bandcamp United feel a union was necessary?

ED: A bunch of times. That’s the thing about organizing, there’s no like you get bit by the radioactive spider and you’re like it’s time to unionize. One of the great things about this process is, the core of organizing to me is talking to people, which sounds really simplistic but I feel that making those individual connections is how you are able to build a strong anything, a strong union, a strong voters coalition, or whatever you’re trying to put together. We’ve talked to everybody in the unit and got to hear why people wanted a union and a lot of people have very different reasons. There were people who thought things were totally okay about Bandcamp and were excited about the possibility of a union to enshrine those things.

You don’t need a union just because your job is bad, sometimes your job is good and you recognize that the people who employ you could change that at any moment. I think that’s a thing that people don’t always talk about, a union isn’t necessarily a response to things being bad, it is a response to the power dynamic in our workplace and I think especially in America, where health insurance and rent is all a critical part of why you have a job, these companies wield a really disproportionate amount of power over your life and anything you are able to do to to even that playing field is a good idea.

I will say that there are a couple of big moments, the conversation had existed before Epic entered the picture but I think Bandcamp management was people we knew, Epic was people we didn’t and so again, that idea that you just want to enshrine the things you currently have is a big part of that conversation. I think also it’s just looking at tech again, even before we were laid off, there was that huge wave of layoffs with Meta and all the other faang (Netflix, Google, Amazon) companies, the big tech companies were doing a bunch of layoffs, you know it’s a precarious environment and a lot of this is more just recognizing the power dynamic than anything else. It’s not about this specific bad thing happened to one of us, it’s just like at any moment you can get laid off, at any moment they can sell your company, at any moment they can change your health insurance and suddenly your new health insurance doesn’t cover gender affirming care or reproductive care.

There are all of these examples, especially as we live in a pretty tumultuous time and I think a lot of large companies are operating from pretty cowardly principles, like we aren’t going to do anything that might alienate the worst people in the world so like there is a lot of pressure for things that would impact marginalized folks at our company. Again, not saying that any of that happened at Bandcamp or under Epic but the potential is there and that potential is enough to be like I would like to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life because it gives my coworkers and I more security and in this instance, we absolutely needed it. We absolutely needed it. Being able to bargain over severance means that support folks that make markedly less than engineers are probably going to be in a better position than they would have been. 

That’s keeping people housed, keeping people’s access to essential medication. In some ways it helps with the massive amount of stress that comes after a layoff, this is a really emotional and scary time for a lot of us and being able to have that little bit of extra security and support. That’s the other thing, I talked a lot about conversations being sort of the fundamental building block of organizing but that means that like, there is someone who is in our unit who has just been posting job resources almost every day, everyone has opened up their network to everyone else, like ‘oh my buddy works here, I can get you a referral’, the vibes are just so different from any other layoff I’ve seen happen, like people are really invested in taking care of each other right now, there is a real ‘no person left behind’ mentality that has just been really joyous, joyous is not the right word but really like beautiful to witness because again, not everyone is in the same position but a similar position where it’s like this thing that we counted on is now just gone. It has not gone in a way that did not feel particularly transparent, you know, I personally was in the middle of learning an entire new skill set to take over a thing for a colleague who was going out on parental leave, there was no indication that something was up. So having the ability to provide a little security and comfort in that moment is really really meaningful.

Thank you so much to Ed at Bandcamp United who took the time to speak with me, thank you all for reading, and please check out my other piece for more information regarding Spotify’s recent policy changes and SongTradr’s purchase of Bandcamp from Epic Games.