Abstract
Freedom of association can concern a labour union’s right to take collective action in its members’ interests. In this pursuit, unions are presumed to augment worker freedom. However, scholarship is sparce on how worker freedom as self-actualisation links to union collective action concerned with coalition-building with civil actors. This theoretical inquiry uses Berlin (1969) and MacCallum’s (1967) freedom notions to assess the meaning of such coalition-building for worker freedom. A radical democratic perspective (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001) of unions’ engagement with Just Transition in New Zealand to progress climate change is then employed to suggest how it augments worker freedom.