DistroKid Lays Off 37 Union Employees An Hour Ahead Of Contract Negotiations

DistroKid has placed 37 employees – all a part of the recently-recognized Distrokid Union – on "administrative leave." The timing couldn't have been better either, considering the layoffs happened one hour prior to the Distrokid Union meeting with DistroKid lawyers to negotiate contracts. Talk about a coincidence!

Representatives for the Distrokid Union have since accused DistroKid of replacing all 37 employees with "overseas labor," and spending "their salaries on marketing." Billboard further reports that all those laid off were part of Quality Control, Artist Relations, and Quality Assurance Engineers.

A representative for DistroKid has since reached out to Billboard with a whole bunch of corporate non-explanations. The statement reads: "DistroKid is committed to continuously enhancing support for independent artists around the world by expanding to 24/7 customer service with faster response times. To achieve this, we have identified solutions that allow us to deliver more scalable and exceptional service, ensuring that artists around the globe receive the high-quality support they deserve. This includes considering difficult decisions that may affect valued team members as we continue our focus on providing the best artist experience possible."

DistroKid's reasoning for outsourcing those jobs (specifically to the Phillippines) is to allegedly address the influx of international DistroKid users. The DistroKid Union is a part of the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians within the Communication Workers of America (NABET-CWA). NABET-CWA has since commented on the union forming, saying DistroKid wasn't exactly cool about the whole thing.

"[Their] workers at the company were subjected to a ferocious anti-union campaign that included multiple, one-on-one anti-union meetings and near-constant anti-union propaganda. The company president also sent several anti-union letters to workers. Despite attempts to dissuade workers, they returned a vote 45-28 in favor of joining NABET-CWA. This effort succeeded due to the unified efforts of the organizing committee, which kept the entire campaign hidden from management until it went public, a rare early coup for the team."