Falling Free has been published in 1986 by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Leo Graf, an engineer, is sent to a space station, the Cay habitat, to teach
welding in vacuum to a group of genetically engineered beings, the Quaddies.
They were designed to be efficient in zero gravity, and have arms and hands
instead of legs. The Quaddies live outside of any legal jurisdiction and have
no human rights. When their usefulness is suddenly reduced to zero by the
invention of artificial gravity, the company owning them decides to sterilize
them and move them to a planet, where they will eventually be forgotten and
die. To prevent that, Leo decides help them revolt. They trick most of the
humans out of the station, convince a destitute jumpship pilot to help them,
steal a cargo jumpship, reconfigure the modules of the habitat to fit in the
jumpship, and eventually leave the sector, hoping to find a place, far away,
where they can live in peace.