Ethan Marcotte’s new book, “You Deserve a Tech Union,” is a compelling and galvanizing read — not just for tech workers, but for anyone who is union-curious (or even union-skeptical). 

The book provides a mix of practical guidelines and steps that one can take to form a union, along with inspiring stories from present-day unionization efforts that capture the imagination about what’s possible. There’s also a historical perspective through stories from the past that demonstrate some of the wins that unions have already brought us. 

One of those stories is the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike, also known as the Bread and Roses Strike:

“One group of women was said to have carried a sign bearing words from the suffrage activist Helen Todd: “We want bread, and roses too.” Their slogan was a call not just for basic subsistence, but for a life of dignity.”

Ethan Marcotte

Ethan Marcotte is a veteran web designer, writer, consultant, and all-around thoughtful human being, known for coining the term “responsive web design” in 2010. His unique perspective on the state of tech organizing today is the result of work in the tech industry for over two decades, where he has lacked the protections he now advocates. “I’ve been self-employed for most of my career, so I’ve never been in a union,” he says. ”But organized labor is something I’ve always cared deeply about.” 

The book describes an evolution in consciousness that mirrors that of many other tech-worker organizers. After the 2016 presidential election, the tech industry saw a surge of activism when workers began to recognize the work they had produced could potentially be abused to harm people. “Those harms had always been there, of course,” he says. “But I think 2016 brought those harms into sharp relief for a lot of people, and a lot of worker-led organizing and activism followed over the next couple of years.”

Ethan vividly recalls the 2018 Google walkouts as a moment when he started seriously thinking about documenting this tectonic shift in the industry. “I’ve never seen anything like that before: 20,000 tech workers taking to the streets to demand systemic change at work,” he says. “It was inspiring.”

The book includes material drawn from interviewing workers from across the tech industry at every level of union formation, discussing why they unionized, how they structured their campaigns, and what challenges they faced. Several workers mentioned they felt overwhelmed at first and that they weren’t sure how to get started. 

“That’s something I want this book to help with: to make the process more clear to others, while shining a light on the people who have unionized their workplaces,” he says. “My hope is that these two things will help readers see ‘forming a union’ as something that’s possible for them, while giving them some resources and materials to get them started on their way… I wanted to write this book because the worker organizing we’re seeing right now has been the single most hopeful thing I’ve seen come out of the tech industry. Tech workers are actually seeing their status as workers. What’s more, they’re recognizing there’s power in that status, and moving together to make change: not just in their workplaces, but also in the industry at large.”

The book is not a detailed organizing manual, and it’s not a how-to guide. “You Deserve a Tech Union” does have practical lessons and resources in it, and the longest chapter is about how to form a union in the United States. But generally, Ethan says, “I was trying to focus more on the why.” There’s a real momentum building, and we’re so excited this book has come out now, as more tech workers are becoming comfortable recognizing that unionizing is a path that’s available to them.

The following is our edited interview with Ethan.

EWOC: I’m really curious about your interest in labor organizing as someone who’s self-employed and doesn’t have co-workers or a boss in the traditional sense. Did it stem from your general interest and research into the tech industry?

Ethan: Oh, well, I’ve been employed full-time before, here and there: I worked in Higher Ed for a time, had a fair bit of agency experience, and so on. But unions were a big part of my life, growing up: I didn’t have a union family, but I was taught by union members, and I received medical care from union members. Maybe most importantly, I had a teacher and mentor who was a big influence on me, and he was firmly pro-union. I saw my first ever Wobbly poster on the halls of his house, before I even really knew what it was. So I guess union stories and histories were something that I was raised on, even if I didn’t understand the politics all that much.

But getting back to your first question, asking why I wrote this book? It’s really been led by the simple fact that there is this wave of organizing in tech. I mean, unions were something I always cared about — but it’s not about me. It’s about workers at companies like Kickstarter and Glitch and Nava and more, who decid