On April 28, 2026, 600 employees at Hachette Book Group—the Big Five publisher that includes imprints such as Little, Brown and Company, Algonquin, Grand Central Publishing, and more—announced the largest unionization campaign in trade publisher history. The Hachette Workers Coalition (HWC) seeks livable wages, better working conditions, a cap on workload hours, AI protections, and follow-through on DEI policies.
The news comes at a time in which corporate consolidation, layoffs, the encroachment of AI, and burnout are threatening to limit and forever alter the books we love. The unionization campaign announcement is a much-needed bit of good news in a sea of uncertainty in the industry, a reminder that a brighter and more sustainable future is possible for the professionals who tireless work to bring books into the world, the authors who place their trust in their publishers, and the readers who enjoy the art.
On May Day, I spoke with three members of the Hachette Workers Coalition—Andy Wang, designer at Workman Kids Publishing; Maria Diaz, senior contracts associate; and Darcy Glastonbury, associate publicist at Little, Brown and Company. We talked about the coalition’s vision, the “passion tax” and the exploitation of creative love, and how organizing can lead our way forward.
To learn more and support the Hachette Workers Coalition, we encourage you to visit their website, follow them on Instagram, and sign the open letter calling on the company to recognize their union.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Michael Welch
Can you talk a little bit about the background that led to the unionization campaign and what you’re looking to secure for Hachette Book Group employees?
Andy Wang
Hachette has actually seen a good history of employees organizing before. Previously, employees in the New York City office staged a walkout protest over certain controversial books being published. We’ve also initiated other movements in response to return to office campaigns that the company started after the pandemic, and this really laid the groundwork for employees to then get together and ask, “hey, what if we took this one step further and actually unionized?” And since 2024, there’s been so much great underground work going toward organizing people, having conversations, filing in with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, before we could then finally launch our public campaign, where we’re now hoping to simply reach an agreement and get to the bargaining table in good faith with the company.
Maria Diaz
We’re trying to have higher salary floors for every level. Pay transparency is another huge thing. We’d like more transparency on the reason why certain people get certain amounts. We’re based all across the country, so we would like a little bit more transparency on that. Then, this one’s really close to me, is expanded DEI goals and hiring and retention. As a Latin woman, I would love to see more diversity in the workplace and have that be maintained. Finally, the right to remote work and flexible in-office scheduling.
Andy Wang
Yeah. I think Maria summed it up really nicely, because so much of our concerns, I think, really are in line with the rest of publishing as an industry. Workers today are just so concerned about longevity, sustainability, and equity. And a big problem is that if publishing, for example, fails to pay you a living wage, if you live in New York City, if you live in other cities across America, where at Hachette even those workers who are outside of New York City have differently depressed salaries. They don’t make the same as we do. There’s a huge problem where a bunch of young folks who are interested in the industry feel like they’re being treated as being moved through a revolving door system, where they’re just in and out because the company thinks there’s [an abundance] of workers who can just replace them. If you’re a more senior level person, say you’re a designer, an art director, a senior art director, it can be really tough to think about, well, how am I going to continue to make more to support my family, to put my kid through college, to think about how can I afford to make rent? It really affects all voices in publishing, because then it’s harder to speak out about issues in the workplace if you’re afraid of losing your main support and insurance.
And this hurts authors, this hurts artists. If the company wants to push to help publish more authors of color, more Black authors, authors from marginalized communities’ identities, if a publisher fails to do that, then where is the protection or support to call out your publisher on that? Where is the opportunity to actually engage in good faith dialogue with the company? We want to see the company succeed, and it makes us more competitive and profitable. If you can really prove to the other big houses, like, hey, if you come and work here, you’ll be supported long-term. You’ll have a voice to talk about how your workplace runs, and you’ll have the opportunity to really grow here. And so we just hope that Hachette recognizes that unionizing is a way to better sustain the workforce, to better sustain publishing. And they can take this opportunity to actually treat workers with more equity and fairness in a way that ultimately benefits everyone at the table.
Michael Welch
Can you give us a window into the pressures publishing professionals experience in their current working conditions?
Darcy Glastonbury
Definitely a huge part of the culture is the expectation that you will just work outside of your regular hours. You’ll walk through your lunch break, you will give 110% to every single thing that you do always, and that you won’t really be able to say no. And for such low wages. There’s very much this idea of a passion tax, where you’re expected to have your passion and your love for books carry you through your work, and have that be the thing that fulfills you in place of a livable wage. So much of our goal is really to be able to continue to work both with passion, but also with dignity so that we can do our best work, because at this point in time, so many of us across publishing are really exhausted.
Maria Diaz
I think we’re also seeing a huge compression of our work. People are being laid off and their positions are not being replaced. We’d like more communication as to if someone quits or gets laid off if their position will get filled. I think that in different departments, we’ve been seeing that that is not the case, and so the work is compounding with the people that have remained. And obviously, our salaries are not compounding with that.
Andy Wang
To me, unionizing is passion protection. Because we’re really looking for a way to ensure that folks can sustain and have longevity in their jobs. And it doesn’t benefit the company’s mission of really understanding consumers and having a growth mindset when it comes to making more books, if the game plan is just to extract more from lowering overhead. So much of this conversation is about the workers trying to unionize, but also, my heart is with our managers, many of whom are my friends, because it is exhausting to be in a position where you have to figure out how to make do with less and less resources. So, what can you do? What can you tell your workers that report to you that, “hey, I’m so sorry that I was not given the all-clear to hire an intern, to hire an assistant, to train someone new, to get more resources to allow you to better adjust the workflow.” I think in order to actually honor and provide a more authentic vision of the goal that Hachette has, and to make it a stellar example of a publisher within the industry, we need to think about what is the new important baseline we have to respect all people at, and that starts by acknowledging what workers need, and recognizing a right to unionize and collectively bargain.
Michael Welch
In your announcement you mentioned AI protections. How do you see AI beginning to encroach upon the industry?
Andy Wang
There is a lot of apprehension and stress that workers are feeling with regards to how they have a say in how they want to use these technologies in the workplace. I think a bigger issue that surrounds AI, and that can extend to other areas in the industry, is the problem of the company having sole unilateral decision-making power over how to use this and when. And especially because it’s so new, it’s so untested, there’s so many legal and cultural discussions you have to work through in talking about AI in the workplace. I can tell the company is trying to work out how do we best use this in a way that protects our authors, creatives, and workers, but if other voices are not allowed to be at that table to say, “hey, I need certain guarantees to protect the work of my artists, of my authors, to make sure that we still have credibility as a company.” Those voices need to be heard and respected. And I think, too, recently there’s a controversy around the cancellation of the book Shy Girl. And to me, really the bigger problem that I think transcends the issue of that title and that team working on that book is the issue of overwork and lack of protections from overwork. If, as an editor, you’re getting 10 manuscripts a week, but all of a sudden it jumps to 15 to 20 because you’ve lost an assistant, because someone has taken an early retirement option and has left the team, how much time do you have to really authentically read your work to engage, to think carefully about what you’re publishing? And how much time do you have to then pass on to people throughout production to think about what it is we’re engaging with? What do we want to tell readers? How much protection and time do we want to take to check that our works are authentically produced, or at least honor the contract under which they were made?
I think in order to really build a robust infrastructure for handling any new technology or any new cultural change that comes through publishing, we need a more equitable system for having workplace conversations and the protections of a contract to see that nothing happens that just takes advantage of workers or happens without their consent or buy-in power.
Darcy Glastonbury
Anecdotally, I have had management start trials of certain AI software encourage us to use it. I’m a publicist, so I’ve been encouraged to use it for things like writing press releases, which is something that I personally really enjoy doing and think needs a human touch. It’s not something that’s mandatory, but it’s kind of this subtle encouragement to use new software. Bringing in these new softwares andologies that haven’t been fully tested or completely cleared while also implying that this is something that can save time, to me, I really worry about that, because if we’re engaged to use AI to save time, then that means that they will feel free to add more work to our plates. Then we’re kind of stuck in a corner of maybe needing to rely on it, and as Andy noted, that creates mistakes because we won’t have the time or energy to really check everything.
Michael Welch
I think there’s a growing sense of anxiety and scarcity around the publishing industry these days that’s being felt by writers, editors, reviewers, and even readers. That the opportunities are rapidly dwindling while at the same time more is being asked of everyone. What role does organizing have in combatting what many see as negative trends in the industry?
Darcy Glastonbury
There are so many people who leave publishing because they can’t afford to stay. And I think so much of our goal is to ensure retention, and to ensure we’re protected as workers. This is why we’re fighting for a livable wage that takes into account the rising cost of living, especially when you’re going to effectively have us made to come into an office and live in New York City, you know, that’s something that really needs to be taken into account. We need a cap on these workload hours, protections from things like AI, and a clear pathway to increasing diversity and retaining diversity. These are things that will make publishing, especially at Hachette, something that is really appealing. As an author, you want to ensure that your book is going to be protected from AI, that the people who are going to be working on your book are not going to make mistakes because they’re overworked. Our goal is to protect workers, but that will trickle down into protecting our authors.
Andy Wang
There’s this crushing feeling among people in the industry, whether in publishing and corporate, or they’re writers, creatives, and artists. And I want to contend that, to me, this further expands the real challenge is how we’re all doing as just people right now. So much of work and life currently just happens to us, right? Like, your promotion is passed over, that just happens to you. You get a lot more work, it just happens to you. But rent goes up, that happens to you. Groceries get more expensive, that happens to you. Health insurance gets more difficult to navigate, that happens to you. What people are looking for right now is a sense of agency and solidarity to finally have a say where they can have some control over what happens to them, because they can actually make decisions and be a part of a bargaining table or negotiation process. I think what the coolest thing that I have really felt, and could only really understand once our campaign became public, was that we’re all in solidarity with workers across America. Labor movements are not just restricted to individual industries, nor are they just confined to the paper that’s written on the contracts that we successfully bargain over and ratify, but it’s the idea that we can actually build our own safety nets and come together to make effective communities that look after each other and care for each other.
We want to prove that there’s a world where better workplace conditions can be achieved, and therefore that dignity is always possible, and you can never destroy decency. You can only work together to build something better for yourself and your colleagues.
Michael Welch
What do you hope to see in the future for Hachette Book Group and this industry overall?
Maria Diaz
I’m so excited to create this community within publishing where we all feel connected and in solidarity with each other. I think sometimes in larger houses, you kind of feel siloed away from your coworkers, you feel that you cannot communicate with someone that may be in Oakland or New York, or in Nashville. And this has brought a sense of community that I have not felt in a very long time. And the fact that I can hear so many different voices from so many different departments saying what they love about working in their departments and what they want and deserve out of their labor has been extraordinary. I do believe that this will revolutionize publishing as a whole. When we win our election I hope we see more of these movements within other houses as well. I think that this will inspire other houses to be more adamant about organizing as well within their own workplaces. And I believe that the precedent that we set with our contract will have ripple effects within the larger publishing.
Darcy Glastonbury
I feel so much solidarity and so much community, and it really does generate a lot of hope, because it’s often really easy to feel like you’re at the mercy of upper management, you know? They dictate who stays, who gets to be hired, all the entire framework of our company. But when you see how many of us have come together in this union, you realize that you have so much more power than you thought you did. I have such high hopes for the contract that we’re able to negotiate. For me, I really hope to see increased wages for everyone, for our work to really be taken seriously, our labor to be taken seriously. For us to be protected from silent layoffs, to just leaving because you can’t afford it anymore. But I also really just hope that we will continue to increase diversity and to publish a diverse range of voices. That, to me, is what drives my work here is just getting to work with so many different people and to be a part of books that make a real impact in the world.
Andy Wang
Yeah, we could not have done this without so much learning, love, and support from our sister unions, especially at the Abrams, especially at Verso, and the HarperCollins Union. And what I want is, on the HarperCollins Union Instagram page, their bio has a statement, the only unionized Big Five publisher. And I want to send them a message saying, “you’re gonna have to change that.” And then we’ll figure out who’s third, who’s fourth, who’s next. Until eventually maybe it becomes not as newsworthy because the industry just has so much better protection.
Michael Welch
How can our readers support your cause?
Andy Wang
I think we would call on your readers to visit our website. Sign our open letter to help call on the company to recognize our union. We ask folks to follow our social media pages, for example, on Instagram, we’re @hachetteworkerscoalition, to keep up with events and postings where there are public events that they can also attend and support us and to know where we’re at leading up to a fair election and getting to the bargaining table so that readers who enjoy books everywhere can understand that the creative works that they’re enjoying are being created by fairly-paid, well-treated, and cared-for human labor. And I think that’ll be a really powerful thing for people to have that confidence in publishing in the future.
Maria Diaz
I think that we’re also getting a sense that authors also want this. They want us to feel seen, heard, respected. Because that means that we have the capacity to be working on their work. Some authors will come to us, maybe first-time authors, and they’re taking a chance, publishing their work, and they want to know that the people that are taking it from point A to Z toward the finish line have the bandwidth and the capacity to work on their work with passion, with joy.
