(Hypebot) — Bandcamp workers across multiple departments want to unionize and are calling on the company and owner Epic Games to allow a “timely and fair election.”
The effort has affiliated with Tech Workers Union Local 1010 of The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU).
“We are project managers, and we are engineers, we are designers, we are vinyl campaign managers, we are support staff, we are editors and writers,” wrote the Bandcamp staffers pushing for a union. “Forming our union is critical to our ability to do our best work and make good on the promise and mission of Bandcamp to provide fair economic conditions, direct support, and transparency for ourselves and all of our users,”
Epic Games, which acquired Bandcamp last year, had previously worked to counter unionization efforts within the main company.
Another independent music powerhouse is already unionized.
The Secretly Group successfully unionized last year after management endorsed the efforts by their employees to seek representation.
“Just as we work to empower our artist and label partners, we want to empower our employees: collaboratively, openly, in full recognition of our competing priorities and our shared goals,” Secretly said in a statement at the time. “More to the point, our employees have taken this progressive step to empower themselves in partnership with us. We applaud this effort and welcome this renewed opportunity for that partnership.”
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.
