The only difference is in who the owners are. Pretty simple.
Just like any other companies they can be profitable or unprofitable or even go bankrupt and shut down.
If a limited liability company goes bankrupt nobody is going to take your house. That's the whole point.
That means you would lose your invested capital (as it should be), but you are not being hit by 100% of the losses.
For an on-going operating company, 100% of the gains and losses accrue to the owners (employees in the case of a 100% employee-owned entity). That’s working as intended/designed/desired.
When a company is healthy it is able to pay salaries to employees and profit to owners. When it's bankrupt is paying 0 salaries and 0 dividends.
When it's in trouble, a company will have to choose who to sacrifice: firing employees or cutting dividends. The priority of privately owned companies is to maximize value for the shareholders. They are more important than employees, by design.
In a coop workers and owners are the same people so they are the first priority, that's all.
Statistics show very clearly that coops have a higher survival rate.
> you earning nothing and owing creditors
Once again, no, as an owner of a limited company going bankrupt you don't owe to creditors.
Almost never, because the company emits stocks (or hires people) only when profits are growing.
