THE (IM)PERFECT MATCH: CREATIVE WORKERS, UNIONS AND REPRESENTATION CLAIMS DURING THE PANDEMIC

In the last fifteen years self-employment, in Europe as well as in Italy, has undergone a significant increase, in particular in the “solo self-employed” (OECD 2020). This increase affected both qualified and unskilled profiles (Gallie 2013) and involved both established professions – such as the regulated ones – and so-called “emerging” professions, i.e. those without regulatory statute, often in production sectors transformed or developed due to digital innovation (Conen and Schippers 2019). A sector where self-employment has grown considerably is that of “creative” labor (Pulignano 2019), where we have a wide range of professions – established and “emerging” – and which is subjected to “disruptive” transformative pressures, characterized by a high level of individualism (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002) and deregulation (De Vita, Lucciarini and Pulignano 2018; Pichault and Semenza 2019). The main argument of the paper, which deals with the Italian case in the European context, is that the pandemic crisis has pushed some creative workers towards collective/associative behaviors, and to establish an unprecedented dialogue and relationship with the trade union, to enjoy its ability to lobby and pressure Institutions, a key factor in the pandemic period, for the drafting of emergency protection schemes and support measures