Book review of "The International Handbook of Labour Unions: responses to neo-liberalism" by Gregor Gall, Adrian Wilkinson and Richard Hurd

[Extract] The International Handbook of Labour Union: Responses to Neo-Liberalism (from here on The Handbook) opens with a reference by its editors (Gall et al.) to the 1999 protests against globalization in Seattle at the meeting of the World Trade Organization there as "a large scale conflagration". More than just symbolically important as the size of the protest was, it was not a "conflagration", no Molotov cocktails were thrown at the police, although the New York Times erroneously reported that some were. Is the malapropism of "conflagration" for "confrontation" caused by editorial zeal? Possibly, but the contributions to the Handbook though committed to challenging the neo-liberal agenda take measured and analytical approaches to its assessment and the responses of labour unions to it. The choice of "handbook" is apposite in that each country chapter offers substantial factual information in addition to analyses and assessments of labour unions' responses to neo-liberalism