It's true that coops are less likely to choose to respond to change by radical workforce reductions, but that's rather the point -- the "need" for such a response isn't an objective fact of circumstance, it's a particular valance of the interest of equity owners vs. those of workers. When the equity owners are the workers, those interests are balanced differently.
It is certainly true that workforce reduction is just one possibility, but what I still wonder is when coops work and when they don't. Somehow it seems to me that they only work when the business is not too scalable, but profit is directly related to work input.
The majority (by number) of worker co-operatives are places like coffee shops, where revenue is more closely related with the number of customers than work input.
Co-ops are a great structure when profit is directly related to work input, but that's not a requirement.
