In December 2022, workers at Common Ground Cafe in Baltimore started to talk about forming a union. They wanted to address issues of pay equity and workplace discrimination, among others. They hoped their boss would be open to working with them to improve the cafe, which had been a mainstay in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood for over 20 years. Instead, when the boss found out about their union drive in July 2023, he closed the business with less than 12 hours’ notice.

Nik Koski, a Common Ground worker involved in the union campaign, was completely shocked: “We prepare ourselves for the different ways a boss might retaliate, but to actually experience it was something else.” Koski’s co-worker Claud Casquarelli had been working at Common Ground for less than a week when they got a Slack message alerting them of the closure. Casquarelli said the news made their heart sink. But shortly thereafter, Casquarelli was added to a group chat where their co-workers were talking about how to respond.

What the Common Ground workers pulled off next is remarkable: They organized a successful campaign to pressure their former boss to agree to a worker buy-out of the business. Today, Common Ground Cafe is open as a worker-owned cooperative, and its workers are unionized with UFCW Local 27. Those of us in the labor movement can learn a lot from how Common Ground workers built power in this seemingly-bleak situation and won collective ownership.