Ben Gwin at Two Dollar HQ

Please welcome Ben Gwin to the Unicorn Stage!

Ben will be reading from his latest memoir, Team Building: A Memoir About Family and a Fight For Worker’s Rights. Following the reading, Ben will be joined in conversation by our buddy Andrew Miller!

In 2019, Ben Gwin played an integral role in organizing the contract workers at Google’s Pittsburgh offices. In Team Building, he takes us inside the employees’ fight for better benefits and more flexible scheduling, offering us a candid account of today’s labor movement and the forces in America that aim to divide workers and maintain the status quo.

But this is also a personal story of struggle and triumph. As Ben works with the union, he’s suddenly faced with the prospect of raising his teenage daughter alone after her mother dies of a drug overdose. As he juggles work and the challenges of single fatherhood, he offers us a frank portrait of daily American life, where it sometimes feels like every moment is an uphill battle.
Expertly crafted and tightly structured, Team Building artfully explores the ways our working conditions reach deeply into our lives outside the office. It’s an honest and ultimately hopeful look at the importance of building solid foundations with the teams that matter most.

Ben Gwin is the author of the novel, Clean Time (Burrow Press), and the book, Team Building: A Memoir about Family and the Fight for Workers’ Rights (Belt). He was also the editor of the anthology, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook (Belt). Ben’s fiction and essays have appeared in The Normal School, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, and others. He lives in Pittsburgh with his daughter.

Andrew Miller is a writer, photographer, and labor organizer living here in Central Ohio. He’s a member of the Industrial Workers of the World’s Freelance Journalist Union as well as a member of the Ohio Civil Service Employee Association. He’s currently a chapter president and chief steward in OCSEA and serves as an external organizer and trainer in the IWW. Andrew has written two books and is a frequent contributor to The Industrial Worker magazine.