D.J. (Damion Jonathan) Bunders MSc

In his PhD project, Damion investigates the challenges that gig workers face when organising themselves in a cooperative enterprise. In particular, he aims to provide insight into the viability and competitive (dis)advantages of platform cooperatives as one institutional approach for organising decent work in the gig economy by analysing the conditions under which cooperatives of gig workers can become resilient. The project addresses questions on enterprise formation, member commitment, democratic governance, and coordination of collective resources. Damion takes a multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach, combining theory from sociology and institutional economics with interview, survey, and text analysis research. Just as economists have long wondered why firms are usually controlled by capital suppliers instead of by labour suppliers, this research project addresses the puzzle of why platforms are not more commonly owned and governed by workers.