Workers with few hours – who secures their social rights? – The role of social dialogue and collective bargaining

This special issue looks at the contributions of social dialogue and collective bargaining to creating, maintaining or reducing the risks associated with employment contracts of few hours, such as marginal part-time work, temporary agency work and zero-hour contracts. It additionally considers changes in welfare institutions with regard to the protection of these groups of workers. In this paper, we introduce the arguments on why and how working in marginal part-time jobs involves vulnerability, and on the differential roles collective bargaining and social protection may have on these jobs, depending in particular on which status (employees, workers or self-employed) they are associated to.