Bandcamp United Ballots in the Mail
Voting is underway at the music streaming platform.
The workers at the music news and streaming platform Bandcamp will be voting shortly on whether or not to officially organize as a collective bargaining unit. Ballots were mailed out in late April and arrived in early May. Now it’s a watch-and-wait game to see whether Bandcamp United, an affiliate of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 1010, sticks.
The final vote follows on the heels of a successful petition (to call for the vote) earlier in the year. The success was communicated by Bandcamp United as a “supermajority” result in favor of unionizing. Some majorities are more super than others, so it’s a positive but not yet decisive signal for the outcome of the final vote.
In the meantime, management at Bandcamp (and new parent company, video game behemoth Epic Games) have hired the services of union-busting firm Foley & Lardner LLP. Not a happy gesture relative to promoting a free and fair voting process.
Bandcamp United is fighting for a bigger voice in the workplace for the workers who make Bandcamp happen. In the wasted landscape of streaming platforms, Bandcamp has distinguished itself as a site that puts art & artists first. The emergence of a unionization movement within their workers’ ranks is a natural expression of this people & principles first approach that the Bandcamp community values. That same community will be watching the results of the election closely to see if the company will continue to practice what it preaches.
Here are some of the Bandcamp workers talking about their movement in their own words:
When we fight, we win.
