Resumen: The privatisation of social services has brought about many social claims regarding the increase of labour market deregulation and employment insecurity during the previous years of economic crisis. This article focuses on the experience of self-organised groups of educational workers (educatori) in Bologna (centre-north of Italy) as a significant case of precarious workers’ mobilisation in a local context and specific sector. Several self-organised groups of precarious workers like these ones have spread throughout Europe, trying to compete with trade unions for the representation of their interests in the current crisis. The main aim of this research is to describe and explain the interaction between self-organised groups and trade unions in the outsourced social sector. According to this, new horizons for labour movements and social change can be analysed by exploring the obstacles to and the opportunities of the interaction between these two subjects. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1332/204986019X15659447509691 Año: 2019 Publicado en: Critical and radical social work 7, 2 (2019), 215-229 ISSN: 2049-8608 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.156 - Sociology and Political Science (Q3)