A Grassroots Victory in the Golden Age of Bullies

This is an adapted translation of “Una sconfitta per i bulli, una vittoria per noi" , a blog post written collectively and published on the website of Acta, the Italian Freelancers Union.

The end of 2025 and the first days of 2026 have marked an unsettling, even demotivating, start to the year. It seems increasingly evident that there is no limit to the use of brute force in settling political, private, or economic disputes. We are living in a golden age of bullies who, with total impunity, expect to impose their will.

And yet, for once, there is a small victory for those who fight back—a piece of good news for Acta , for Redacta , and for every freelance professional and author.

A textbook case of monopsony

The good news comes from the Italian Antitrust Authority’s (AGCM) inquiry into the textbook industry.

As I explained in my previous article, “Attack on Giants: the Unions and the Titans of Culture” , the Italian textbook industry combines high market concentration — four publishing groups control 80% of the educational market — with extensive outsourcing. This is particularly damaging for workers, who face a monopsony — a situation in which there are few big buyers of labor who can extract overly favourable conditions — without the protection of collective bargaining agreements.

The Ruling of the Antitrust Authority

At Acta, we have been fighting against this imbalance for years. In 2017, a law was approved in Italy — the Statute of Self-Employment — to which we made a significant contribution. This law established a set of fundamental rights for freelancers, including protection against late payments, and Article 3, which nullifies “abusive clauses” — unfair terms imposed unilaterally by large clients.

Unfortunately, Article 3 has largely remained toothless, particularly in markets where the power imbalance between workers and businesses is stronger — precisely the markets where this article could help workers.

This has now changed. With its ruling, the Italian Antitrust Authority has finally given this law its teeth. You can read the English version of the executive summary of the inquiry . The report’s conclusions state:

“The Authority reserves the right to verify […] the legitimacy of contractual conditions unilaterally imposed in commercial relationships with […] individual self-employed workers active in the supply of authorial-editorial services.” (Para. 480 )

The End of the “Take it or Leave it” Era

Practically speaking, from today on, authors and freelancers in this industry can send their contracts directly to the Antitrust Authority to flag abusive clauses.

During the research we conducted for our submission to the inquiry, we found these abusive clauses everywhere:

• Unpaid non-compete agreements that lock you out of the market.
• Total surrender of copyright for zero or derisory royalties.
• “Unappealable judgment” clauses, allowing clients to demand infinite revisions for free.

Until now, faced with these clauses the only options were to walk away or try to negotiate with a colossus. And look, we love to negotiate, but there is no point in negotiating over abuse.

When a bully punches you in the face simply because they can, you don’t try to convince them to give you a slap instead. You find someone to pin their arm back. In our case the Antitrust is that someone.

By establishing that abusive clauses can be unilaterally flagged and subsequently nullified, the Authority shifts the risk back onto the dominant party. It changes the cost-benefit analysis of the “take-it-or-leave-it” model: when unfair terms are no longer legally certain, they become potential liabilities. This creates a deterrence mechanism, discouraging corporations from imposing such clauses in the first place.

Today Textbooks, Tomorrow… the World?

This victory is not an isolated event; it belongs to a much broader regulatory shift happening worldwide. We are witnessing a new era where antitrust authorities are looking beyond consumer prices to ensure that the labor market itself remains fair and competitive. This is a significant development for the independent workforce, as regulators increasingly treat coordinated practices—such as “wage-fixing” and “no-poaching” agreements—as major market distortions that harm the dignity of work.

The precedents are multiplying: from the UK’s 2025 intervention against broadcasting giants like the BBC and Sky for coordinating freelancer rates in sports production, to the sanctions against model agencies in Italy , France , and the UK for price collusion. Similar actions have been taken in the French and Portuguese tech sectors to prevent agreements that limit employee mobility, and even in Mexico to challenge salary caps in professional sports. And, of course, there are the examples of Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter in the US. The message from these global authorities is becoming consistent: competition law is no longer blind to labor.

However, these institutional shifts do not occur in isolation. The willingness to enforce competition law is influenced by the political climate, a reality highlighted by the current shifts in leadership at the Federal Trade Commission under the Trump administration . Trade unions and professional associations can play an important role by providing empirical data on working conditions and applying organised pressure on the competent authorities. The AGCM didn’t “discover” the abuses in the Italian texbook industry; we brought the evidence to their doorstep . We turned years of quiet frustration into a documented systemic failure. This ruling is not a gift or a stroke of luck—it is the institutional echo of a collective voice for fairness.

It all starts with solidarity. The moment we stop acting alone, the balance of power starts to change.

No bully can scare us if we stand together.

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