Verity Burgmann Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century, London: Routledge, 2016; 272 pp.: ISBN 0415528534, 118.02 [pounds sterling] The growing interest in the role of labour in the processes of globalisation marks a departure from the 1990's literature which seemed to assume a workerless world. In fact, globalisation has led to a doubling in size of the global working class which is at least as significant as the so-called information revolution in setting the parameters of the capital/ wage-labour relation in the decades that follow. Burgmann's book enters this well-trodden field with a particular take, namely, Italian autonomism/workerism, though heavily reliant on the secondary work of Nick Dyer-Witheford. This prompts a constant attention to workers' agency and a refusal to 'naturalize' globalisation. The view of globalisation is somewhat Manichean, with reference to its 'cunning plans' and a belief that it has somehow been directed by giant transnational firms and capitalist states. This framework sets the basis for the story that follows on labour's engagement with neoliberal globalisation. The scene is set by Picketty's well-known analysis of how the share of output going to wages and profits has shifted dramatically in favour of the latter. The labour movement has responded to that shift and, in doing so, is changing itself, becoming revitalised to some extent. Rejecting a capital-logic perspective, Burgmann shows how capital is always driven by the need to forestall, co-opt and, ultimately, defeat labour. But new methods can turn against capital as in the strikes in the United States in the 1990s where 'just-in-time' techniques were used by workers to establish choke points during labour actions. Post-Fordism was no panacea for capital. Nor was the dramatic increase in outsourcing to low wage countries, where the resistance of labour steadily increased. Thus, China is now becoming the epicentre of global labour unrest after earlier attracting western capital with its low wages and pliant migrant labour. Somewhat incongruously the author argues that 'Europe has been the pacesetter in terms of regional labour transnationalism' (p. 115) under the unlikely leadership of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Two strong points of this book from my perspective are the emphasis on 'mobilizing the marginalized' and the original treatment of labour online. The labour movement has, arguably, become a more inclusive social agent over the last 20 years or so. The 'male, white and straight' image of labour has, for Burgmann, been largely superseded. On the other side of the equation, the 'new' social movements are seen to be an aspect of the struggle against capital and not the harbingers of the death of class. Less attention is paid to the so-called 'precariat', at least in the South. However, undoubtedly, the chapter on 'reversing decline by going online? …