DistroKid, the world’s largest independent distributor, has placed 37 unionized employees on “administrative leave” as the union prepares to meet with company lawyers for new contract negotiations, the DistroKid Alliance posted on Instagram on Saturday (October 10). the hour before. The information provided in this Instagram post has been verified by two employees at DistroKid.
The union said these employees would be “replaced”[d]…overseas workforce,” a move that affects about “a quarter” of the company’s employees. A spokesperson for DistroKid believes it’s closer to 15% of the workforce, not 25%. According to a DistroKid employee, Affected are members of the company’s quality control and artist relations (customer service) teams, the union added in the post that DistroKid told them it wanted to eliminate the positions “to spend their salaries on marketing.”
respond advertising billboard A spokesperson for DistroKid said: “DistroKid is committed to continuously increasing our support for independent artists around the world by expanding to 24/7 customer service and faster response times. To achieve this goal, we have identified solutions that allow us to Providing a more scalable and superior service to ensure artists around the world receive the high-quality support they deserve. This includes considering the impact of valuable team members as we continue to focus on delivering the best artist experience possible. difficult decision.
Over the past year or so, DistroKid has contracted with a third-party customer service team based in the Philippines to help meet the needs of artists. The administrative leave of 37 works aims to eliminate its in-house artist relations team based in the United States and replace it with more third-party and international staff. The company believes this will help them cope with the influx of international DistroKid users who require 24/7 service in multiple languages.
The DistroKid Alliance was formed in February as part of the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians, a union within the Communications Workers of America (NABET-CWA). According to NABET-CWA’s announcement regarding the formation of the DistroKid union, “workers at the company have been subjected to a brutal anti-union campaign that included multiple, one-on-one anti-union meetings and near-constant anti-union propaganda. The company’s president also issued a message to workers. Several anti-union letters.
“Despite workers’ attempts to dissuade them, they voted 45 to 28 in favor of joining NABET-CWA. The success of this effort was attributed to the unified efforts of the committee, and the entire event was kept secret from management until it was made public, which was a great time for the team. A rare early coup,” the announcement continued. DistroKid employees are working remotely, but their union is affiliated with NABET-CWA local 51016 in New York City.
The news comes after several years of rapid expansion for DistroKid, which now distributes 30-40% of the world’s new music. Two years ago, it launched DistroVid, which enables artists to upload an unlimited number of music videos to leading digital service providers for a fixed fee. Then, last year, the company launched an iPhone app with Mixea, an AI-powered mastering tool that helps artists prepare songs, and announced it had acquired music networking platform Bandzoogle, which helps artists create websites. E-commerce companies and sell their music and merchandise.
