Reducing Inequalities in Europe: How Industrial Relations and Labour Policies Can Close the Gap, Edited by Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead (2018) Cheltenham, UK/Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 640 pages. ISBN: 978-1-78811-628-2

Inequality is a fashionable term. Once largely confined to describing socio-economic differences and especially extreme economic deprivation, it is now applied to almost any injustice, real or imagined. Often overlooked in contemporary debates and policy making that purport to address inequality is the historically pivotal role that organized labour and the institutions its campaigns were critical in building played in redistributing income and creating more economic security for the wider community of richer countries. Wealthy societies are not built simply on technology or resources but on the social ingenuity that utilizes available resources, that nurtures the widest sources of innovation from the community and the broadest base of consumption of expensive goods and services by spreading income/economic security. Resources riches are commonly used to explain the high-living standards of countries like Canada and Australia, but this contention fails to explain why other resource-rich countries like Brazil, Argentina or South Africa did not secure comparable results. As the subtitle indicates Reducing Ine-qualities in Europe is a collection of essays examining the contribution of industrial relations mechanisms and associated labour policies mitigating inequality in over twelve European countries. The book was, in part, the outcome of a Geneva meeting of ministers organized by the ILO and European Commission in early 2017 and reflecting this, the book has a strong focus on policy and practical remedies rather than exploring the theoretical/evidentiary underpinnings of the problem. Notwithstanding its policy focus, the evidence on rising inequality is there. Using statistics and well accepted measures, notably the Gini coefficient, a uniform and familiar pattern of rising inequality is presented for the countries examined, both wealthy ones like Germany and poorer countries like Slovenia. The reasons for growing inequality are also discussed, notably the rise of neoliberalism and the policies it promotes resulting in a decline in full-employment policies, union density, collective bargaining, income security/welfare and a com-mensurate growth in precarious work, subcontracting and the informal sector. The 2007 Great Financial Crash and the havoc it wreaked on particular parts of Europe get more than a passing mention but, of course, this is but one symptom the instability neoliberalism actually delivers with the double-irony that its failings were used to justify austerity programs—more neoliberalism to fix problems created by umm… neoliberalism as well as ever-lower interest rates and the printing of money now euphemistically labelled quantitative easing (but unlike Keynesian economics in no way directed to help the poor work and consume). It is, of course, an ironic if not outright disingenuous twist that the European Commission should involve itself in the 2017 Geneva meeting given its pivotal role of promoting neoliberal policies in the European Union over the past two decades. This, and ministerial involvement, may help explain why the book is not as scathing as it might have been about root causes of the problem or as fundamental in the remedies posited. It is not quite of the order of fine-tuning the engines on the Titanic, but the remedies are incremental and, at best, may mitigate, but not arrest, the trends underway and their monumental/human social consequences. With this in mind, there is still a lot of value in the book and its collected essays, even if the reader has to work harder than they probably should have to draw key themes and findings out. The opening editorial introduction and overview chapter attempts this, but in a rather guarded and too generic fashion. I am going largely confine my remaining observations to these points, as they are those most pertinent to a global readership. Of course, those interested in particular countries or in deepening …