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If I understood correctly, they are claiming that Epic effectively laid off everyone and sold some of the assets to SongTradr. SongTradr then made offers to hal

If I understood correctly, they are claiming that Epic effectively laid off everyone and sold some of the assets to SongTradr. SongTradr then made offers to half the previous employees. As these people were not previously SongTradr employees, SongTradr hasn't laid off anyone because of their union activities - they didn't employ them in the first place. At least I expect that's their argument. Seems like the way the sale was set up, it was deliberately done to avoid any commitments to the Bandcamp workforce. No idea of the legality of this, but if I was a Bandcamp employee that was lucky enough to move to SongTradr, I'd be polishing my resume, because it doesn't bode well for them being a good employer.

gizmo 3y ago
Firing everybody and only re-hiring the meek employees is a classic union-busting tactic and plainly unlawful.
- gosub100 3y ago
  Maybe lesson for next time: have some "sleeper cells" in the company that are not part of the union who can slow down development, create bugs, and waste time, accidentally check in AWS creds, etc.
  - skeeter2020 3y ago
    Aside from sounding like an idea my 14-yr-old son might suggest, if you actually want to promote organization as a superior arrangement for software development and tech companies this would make them look worse. Most of us are too busy working to play Tom Clancy.
- chasd00 3y ago
  i think the argument the parent is making is songtradr didn't fire anyone the only hired who they preferred.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gizmo 3y ago
    Does a judge want to set the precedent that union busting is legal when you do it with extra steps? 1) Fire everybody 2) Create new corporate entity 3) Rehire the meek and compliant 4) Sell corporate entity back to original company Judges tend to get very cranky when they have to deal with shenanigans like these.
    - jacobr1 3y ago
      Except there is no #4 in this case. The question really should just be in #1 is legal. The extra shenanigans doesn't change that question.
      - gizmo 3y ago
        But it would still set the /precedent/ that you can lawfully shed troublesome employees who you could otherwise not fire by changing the ownership structure of a company. #1 by itself is not illegal. When companies move a factory overseas they also just fire everybody. Not nice, but not illegal.
        chimeracoder 3y ago
        > #1 by itself is not illegal. When companies move a factory overseas they also just fire everybody. Not nice, but not illegal. It's not illegal in se, but it is illegal if it's done in order to retaliate against employees for organizing, in order to target union employees, in order to undermine a union, etc. There's a question of enforcement, and there's the challenge of proving that to the requisite legal standard. But assuming the facts are established, it's actually a very clear violation of the NLRA.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- stuaxo 3y ago
  "Fire and rehire" in the UK British Gas (former gov owner entity, privatised) tried this in 2021. They were told if they didn't sign a worse deal they would be fired, causing a fight with the union.
rahoulb 3y ago
I don't know about elsewhere, but under UK law this would be illegal - precisely to stop this sort of thing happening. The new company has to offer employees a "transfer of previous employment" - so even though you're working for someone else, your history at the previous company is moved over with you. So if they wanted to get rid of you, they would then have to go through a redundancy process - which involves explaining why they're letting you go, offering you alternatives and giving you a payout based on your length of service.
- jacobr1 3y ago
  But in this case apparently they didn't actually sell the company, so no employees moved. The employees were still employed at Epic, until laid off by Epic. So presuming there was a violation of labor law (in the US or hypothetically in the UK) wouldn't all liability rest with Epic? Unless the argument is that it really _was_ a sale of the company, which probably rests on very technical arguments specific to the jurisdiction.
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    > wouldn't all liability rest with Epic? I think how it gets prosecuted also depends on if there is a way to prove collusion between the two companies in this. It is absolutely fishy that Epic laid everyone off just before the sale/transfer concluded to Songtradr and both companies can currently pretend they did nothing wrong and hurting the union was an accident of bad timing and Songtradr especially looking "clean" hiring back in "waves" based on BS metrics and "goodwill" since it could have just not offered jobs back to people already laid off by the previous owner. It can be hard not to imagine that there wasn't some "golf course handshake" on the whole thing, but proving that existed may be tough to do, especially if the collusion was literal golf course handshakes with no paper trail.
  - plussed_reader 3y ago
    This is just the Prop 13 workaround for business real estate in California; don't sell the property sell the LLC that owns the deed to the plot. This should be illegal but it just sounds like good free market business.

gizmo 3y ago

Firing everybody and only re-hiring the meek employees is a classic union-busting tactic and plainly unlawful.

gosub100 3y ago
Maybe lesson for next time: have some "sleeper cells" in the company that are not part of the union who can slow down development, create bugs, and waste time, accidentally check in AWS creds, etc.
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  Aside from sounding like an idea my 14-yr-old son might suggest, if you actually want to promote organization as a superior arrangement for software development and tech companies this would make them look worse. Most of us are too busy working to play Tom Clancy.
chasd00 3y ago
i think the argument the parent is making is songtradr didn't fire anyone the only hired who they preferred.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gizmo 3y ago
  Does a judge want to set the precedent that union busting is legal when you do it with extra steps? 1) Fire everybody 2) Create new corporate entity 3) Rehire the meek and compliant 4) Sell corporate entity back to original company Judges tend to get very cranky when they have to deal with shenanigans like these.
  - jacobr1 3y ago
    Except there is no #4 in this case. The question really should just be in #1 is legal. The extra shenanigans doesn't change that question.
    - gizmo 3y ago
      But it would still set the /precedent/ that you can lawfully shed troublesome employees who you could otherwise not fire by changing the ownership structure of a company. #1 by itself is not illegal. When companies move a factory overseas they also just fire everybody. Not nice, but not illegal.
      - chimeracoder 3y ago
        > #1 by itself is not illegal. When companies move a factory overseas they also just fire everybody. Not nice, but not illegal. It's not illegal in se, but it is illegal if it's done in order to retaliate against employees for organizing, in order to target union employees, in order to undermine a union, etc. There's a question of enforcement, and there's the challenge of proving that to the requisite legal standard. But assuming the facts are established, it's actually a very clear violation of the NLRA.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
stuaxo 3y ago
"Fire and rehire" in the UK British Gas (former gov owner entity, privatised) tried this in 2021. They were told if they didn't sign a worse deal they would be fired, causing a fight with the union.

rahoulb 3y ago

I don't know about elsewhere, but under UK law this would be illegal - precisely to stop this sort of thing happening. The new company has to offer employees a "transfer of previous employment" - so even though you're working for someone else, your history at the previous company is moved over with you. So if they wanted to get rid of you, they would then have to go through a redundancy process - which involves explaining why they're letting you go, offering you alternatives and giving you a payout based on your length of service.

jacobr1 3y ago
But in this case apparently they didn't actually sell the company, so no employees moved. The employees were still employed at Epic, until laid off by Epic. So presuming there was a violation of labor law (in the US or hypothetically in the UK) wouldn't all liability rest with Epic? Unless the argument is that it really _was_ a sale of the company, which probably rests on very technical arguments specific to the jurisdiction.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  > wouldn't all liability rest with Epic? I think how it gets prosecuted also depends on if there is a way to prove collusion between the two companies in this. It is absolutely fishy that Epic laid everyone off just before the sale/transfer concluded to Songtradr and both companies can currently pretend they did nothing wrong and hurting the union was an accident of bad timing and Songtradr especially looking "clean" hiring back in "waves" based on BS metrics and "goodwill" since it could have just not offered jobs back to people already laid off by the previous owner. It can be hard not to imagine that there wasn't some "golf course handshake" on the whole thing, but proving that existed may be tough to do, especially if the collusion was literal golf course handshakes with no paper trail.
- plussed_reader 3y ago
  This is just the Prop 13 workaround for business real estate in California; don't sell the property sell the LLC that owns the deed to the plot. This should be illegal but it just sounds like good free market business.