Earlier this week, we reported that just about 50% of Bandcamp's staff was laid off when the property was sold by Epic Games to Songtradr. Interestingly, about two hours after we posted our article, we were e-mailed by Songtradr who requested that we post a "clarification. (which we did). Other sites saw the same behavior, suggesting that Songtradr was actively trying to combat the bad pr, especially since they described the massive layoffs as "50% of bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr." At the time, songtradr did not mention that the other 50% of employees were not offered employment at all.

More details have now come to light. Apparently, in the layoffs, Songtradr laid off the entirety of Bandcamp United's (the bandcamp union) bargaining team. According to various sources, all eight members of the bargaining team were let go. Songtradr claims that it did not know which employees were or were not part of the bargaining team. However, according to 404 Media, Bandcamp United invited Songtradr executives to a meeting prior to the layoffs.

Songtradr did issue a statement to 404 media: "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. 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.”

Mathematically speaking, if a company of 118 people laid off 58 employees, and 8 were union members but the company did not know which 8 were union members, the likelihood that all eight union members would be laid off, all other factors being equal, is .00262%, or about 1/5 of 1%.

We'll keep you updated.