None of the eight Bandcamp employees who were leading negotiations for the union set up by workers at the direct-to-fan firm have been offered jobs by new owner Songtradr, according to 404.
However, Songtradr insists that it did not have union membership information when it was deciding which Bandcamp employees would be offered jobs as part of its acquisition of the company.
Employees at Bandcamp decided to unionise after the company was acquired by Fortnite owner Epic Games in March 2022.
The Bandcamp United union was formally recognised in May this year and union members then voted on who should represent them in talks with management about various issues that had been raised by the workforce. Those talks were ongoing when Epic announced it was selling Bandcamp to Songtradr last month.
It was confirmed earlier this week that only half of Bandcamp's employees had been offered jobs by the company's new owner. The other employees will now be made redundant as part of a wider downsizing within the Epic Games business.
Commenting on the redundancies, Bandcamp United said in a statement: “On Monday, 16 Oct 2023 over half of Bandcamp was laid off as a result of Epic Games’ divestiture to Songtradr. Of those laid off, 40 were in the union bargaining unit out of a total 67 members. None of the eight democratically elected bargaining team members received a job offer".
Responding to that statement, a spokesperson for Songtradr told 404: “Songtradr had no access to union membership information and we executed our employment offer process with full-consideration of all legal requirements".
“We carried out a comprehensive, full company evaluation that involved a detailed examination of each role", she added. "This evaluation considered several factors such as product groups, job functions, employee tenure, performance evaluations, the importance of roles for smooth business operations, and whether a similar function already existed at Songtradr including our experience of running it and associated requirements”.
