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Ever since labour geography first started demonstrating workers' ability to shape geographies, geographers have problematised the agency of labour. This article responds to a recent intervention by Strauss (2020a; Progress in Human Geography 44 [1]:150-159), challenging the sub-discipline to reflect on who counts as a worker and what counts as work. By combining theories of roles and intersectionality, the article poses a related question: as whom do workers act? Theoretically, a critical realist approach to labour agency forms the basis for an intersectional reading of the active subject. To illustrate our argument, we juxtapose the accounts of three people who speak for groups of workers or are asked to justify the actions of collective actors like unions or social movements. By showing how these actors improvise their own role incumbency while actively negotiating social identities, the article problematises the epistemology of constrained labour agency while responding to Strauss' call for a rethinking of the ontologies of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines how organised labour as an important strategic actor in the political economy engages with climate change mitigation policies. By using The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO‐Norway) as a case study, we investigate how sectoral unions view the national confederation as a contested space of engagement in which they promote their positions on petroleum extraction and environmental conservation around the Lofoten archipelago. Affiliate unions of LO‐Norway legitimise their policy positions through claims of sectoral and regional representation. The analysis traces the confrontation of these policy positions as inter‐union solidarity was put to the test in the build‐up to the 2017 LO‐Norway congress. While an emerging climate agenda seemingly opened a discursive window for a policy shift within LO‐Norway at the 2017 congress, we show how institutional norms harnessed claims of sectoral and regional dependence and maintained unity within the national confederation. The paper examines how sectoral unions within and beyond the petroleum industry used The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO‐Norway) as a space of engagement for promoting their policy positions on oil exploration, climate change and environmental protection in the build‐up to the 2017 LO‐Norway congress. While an emerging climate agenda seemingly opened a discursive window for a policy shift within LO‐Norway at the 2017 congress, we show how institutional norms harnessed claims of sectoral and regional dependence and maintained unity within the national confederation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically evaluates the concept of labour agency. First, we briefly reprise structure/agency debates in human geography in order to distil how agency is best conceived. Second, we propose a more discerning approach to labour agency that unpacks its many spatial and temporal dimensions. Third, we develop a ‘re-embedded’ notion of labour agency and identify global production networks, the state, the community and labour market intermediaries as key arenas for consideration. The paper argues that worker strategies must always be assessed in relation to these wider social relations, suggesting a constrained, variegated notion of labour agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]