“A workers’ co-op rises from the remains of a Colorado mushroom farm”

… Over decades starting in 1985, the Colorado Mushroom Farm northeast of Alamosa sold millions of pounds of …it offered year-round employment to generations of migrant workers, many of whom came here from Guatemala…

But when the farm filed for bankruptcy in December 2022, it owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages to employees, some of whom had been subjected to unsafe working conditions and were injured on the job…

… a mix of documented and undocumented workers were employed by the farm….

…some of those workers are taking charge of their futures with the help of a powerful coalition of nonprofit and government supporters as well as Minsun Ji at the Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center…

…federal records show the facility left employees at risk of being burned, shocked, electrocuted or falling….

When Roque asked Ji to help organize the farm workers, she began a feasibility study to assess the viability of converting the Colorado Mushroom Farm into an employee-owned cooperative…

One of the many things that stand out about the Sand Dunes Mushroom Cooperative is the collective power of the organizations backing it...