You Deserve a Tech Union is here!

Today’s the day: You Deserve a Tech Union, my brand new book, starts shipping today. You can buy direct from my publisher using that link, but you can also purchase it nearly everywhere you can buy books online.

I can’t believe it’s here.

Like, really. I can’t believe it. I mean, yes, I have been talking about the book quite a bit: what it is, what’s inside it, and about a few ways you can support the book. My publisher even interviewed me about the writing process. But I’ve been working on this book for over two years: interviewing, stressing, writing, outlining, stressing some more, writing some more, making images, revising some more, stressi — well, you get the idea. Frankly, it’s going to take some time to get used to the idea of not working on this book. There’s a lot of me wrapped up in it.

I mean that quite sincerely. I started interviewing people for the book in the summer of 2021. A few months later — exactly two years ago today, in fact — I landed in the hospital quite unexpectedly. I got a life-changing diagnosis, and started several months of slow, often frustrating recovery. At the time, I didn’t know if I’d even be able to look at a computer again for more than a few minutes. When things finally stabilized, and I felt like working on the book again? Well, it felt like healing. That’s yet another reason I’m so happy to have hit this milestone. It’s been quite a journey to get here.

With all that, I’m so incredibly happy You Deserve a Tech Union is finally out in the world. This little book’s not perfect, of course — what is? But I think (and hope) it’s the best version of the book I could’ve possibly made. And I’m really, really proud of that.

Of course, this book didn’t happen without help. In fact, I’ll say that if you get a copy of the book, just open it right to the acknowledgments in the back.¹ That’ll give you a sense of some of the many (many, many) voices who helped You Deserve a Tech Union come into being.

And now that the book’s here, I’d like to thank just a few of them.

As I mentioned before, dozens of people sat down with me for interviews, sharing their stories and experiences from across the tech industry’s labor movement. Without their generosity and their trust, this book wouldn’t have happened.

What’s more, two of my earliest interviews contributed directly to the book. Clarissa Redwine wrote an absolutely moving foreword, one I’ve read and reread countless times; RV Dougherty graciously agreed to act as the book’s expert reviewer, and improved it in so many ways. I think of them both as pillars of the modern tech labor movement, and I worry I’ll never quite find the words to properly thank them.

I’m incredibly fortunate to call Garret Keizer a friend and mentor. And if he hadn’t earned those titles before I started writing, he absolutely did over the last two years. Garret helped me untangle difficult arguments I needed to make, and offered advice and counsel whenever I needed it. (Which I did. Often.) Heck, the fact that I even know the phrase “organized labor” is due entirely to him. Thank you so much, Garret.

Most importantly, I want to thank She: for her support, for listening, for asking the right questions, and for making this book possible. Hell, She makes basically everything I do possible with her patience, her labor, her kindness, and her love.

Now. There’s one more person I want to thank, and that’s you. My copies of the book haven’t arrived yet, so it’s been exciting to see photos like these popping up online:

If you bought the book, if you asked your library to order a copy, if you shared the link with a friend: well, thank you. I can’t believe that You Deserve a Tech Union is finally out in the world. And, well, your support literally made this little book possible. More than anything else, I hope it’s useful to you. After all, I wrote it for you, for me — for all of us.

Thank you, as always, for reading.