Conclusion: contingent workers’ voice in Southern Europe after Covid-19

The chapter analyses the pandemic crisis as a ‘critical juncture’, an historic moment of relative structural indeterminacy, in which path-dependency reproduction mechanisms weaken and ties to the past loosen, while possible choices multiply. The role of ‘wilful actors’, in old and new forms of protection and representation of workers, becomes crucial in this new context. As can be seen throughout this book, in the current phase of transformation of the world of work, instability and contingency have become frequent situations in people’s working lives. Nevertheless, the potential, conditions and limits to social protection and collective action among contingent workers are only starting to be explored. This book aims to help fill this gap. The analysis presented can provide traditional unions with insight into the specific demands of emerging categories of workers and help these organizations find ways to improve and strengthen their action. Likewise, it offers tested experiences of alternative courses of action and organization to those workers who are on the margins of the ‘standard’ employment relationship and do not feel represented by the traditional actors of labour relations.