Memoirs by union organizers tend to let the author’s life outside of the workplace recede into the background. That makes sense: readers pick up these books to learn about the workplace part of their lives. But it also compartmentalizes the lives of labor activists in a way that loses something essential for understanding those few who choose to dedicate so much of their days to such struggle. Involving oneself in a collective project and taking on fights that have long odds are choices shaped by one’s entire life situation. To understand why someone would commit to such battles, it helps to know a bit more about them.

Ben Gwin’s Team Building: A Memoir About Family and the Fight for Workers’ Rights offers such a portrait. In September 2019, Gwin was one of the first tech workers in the United States to unionize. He was employed by HCL Technologies, one of many third-party contractors who work for Google. The HCL workers, based in Pittsburgh, voted forty-nine to twenty-four to join the United Steel Workers (USW). Team Building is the story of how they got there.

Gwin opens with a catheter and a bottle of Oxycodone. It is March of 2019, and a complication following hemorrhoid surgery has left him unable to urinate. Gwin has been sober for fourteen years, so taking the pain medication has left him on edge. So, too, the situation’s bearing on his ability to return to work. HCL requires its employees to take a full week of their scarce paid time off (PTO); while he eventually goes on short-term disability, it requires navigating a labyrinth of forms and phone calls.