Work performed under cash-for-care programmes is based on a relationship between several parties, including, at a minimum, the workers providing the services, the care recipients and the public authorities that manage and fund these programmes. Labour law studies have pointed out that the labour relations regulation is not adapted to this type of non-standard employment relationship since it has been founded on the norm of the integrated firm and bilateral employer–employee relations. Based on a case study of a cash-for-care programme in Quebec, Canada (i.e. the Service Employment Paycheque plan), our socio-legal analysis confirms the weak protection of collective labour rights provided to Service Employment Paycheque plan workers. It also describes how the application of the legal regulation of labour relations to this organizational model fails to take into account the power exercised by the public authorities and demonstrates the impact of this failure in terms of precarization of work and its gendered devaluation.