2. 职称英语
  3. According to many analysts, labor-management relations in the United States are

According to many analysts, labor-management relations in the United States are

游客2024-01-12  28
问题 According to many analysts, labor-management relations in the United States are undergoing a fundamental change: traditional adversarialism is giving way to a new cooperative relationship between the two sides and even to concessions from labor. These analysts say the twin shocks of nonunion competition in this country and low-cost, high-quality imports from abroad are forcing unions to look more favorably at a variety of management demands: the need for wage restraint and reduced benefits as well as the abolition of "rigid" work rules, seniority rights, and job classifications.
Sophisticated proponents of these new developments cast their observations in a prolabor light. In return for their concessions, they point out, some unions have bargained for profit sharing, retraining rights, and job-security guarantees. Unions can also trade concessions for more say on the shop floor, where techniques such as quality circles and quality-of-work-life programs promise workers greater control over their own jobs. Unions may even win a voice in investment and pricing strategy, plant location, and other major corporate policy decisions previously reserved to management.
Opponents of these concessions from labor argue that such concessions do not save jobs, but either prolong the agony of dying plants or finance the plant relocations that employers had intended anyway. Companies make investment decisions to fit their strategic plans and their profit objectives, opponents point out, and labor costs are usually just a small factor in the equation. Moreover, unrestrained by either loyalty to their work force or political or legislative constraints on their mobility, the companies eventually cut and run, concessions or no concessions.
Wage-related concessions have come under particular attack, since opponents believe that high union wages underlay much of the success of United States industry in this century. They point out that a long-standing principle, shared by both management and labor, has been that workers should earn wages that give them the income they need to buy what they make. Moreover, high wages have given workers the buying power to propel the economy forward.
If proposals for pay cuts, two-tier wage systems, and subminimum wages for young workers continue to gain credence, opponents believe the U.S. social structure will move toward that of a less-developed nation: a small group of wealthy investors, a sizable but still minority bloc of elite professionals and highly skilled employees, and a huge mass of marginal workers and unskilled laborers. Further, they argue that if unions willingly engage in concession bargaining on the false grounds that labor costs are the source of a company’s problems, unions will find themselves competing with Third World pay levels—a competition they cannot win. [br] The sentence "If proposals for pay cuts .. . unskilled laborers" serves primarily to
选项 A、disprove a theory
B、clarify an ambiguity
C、reconcile opposing views
D、present a hypothesis
E、contradict accepted data
答案 D
解析 Evaluation
This question asks you to determine the intended purpose of one of the passage’s sentences. This sentence, found in the final paragraph, describes what opponents of labor concessions predict are possible consequences if labor unions agree to pay cuts, two-tier wage systems, or lower wages for newly hired workers. These hypothesized consequences can be summarized as a significant degradation in the overall material welfare of large sections of the population because of grossly unequal distribution of wealth and income such as exist in some less-developed societies.
A The sentence describes what is perceived as something that could occur if labor unions were to make concessions resulting in reductions in wages. It is not framed as evidence to refute a theory, since it is merely a prediction of what could occur.
B The sentence does not function in resolving an ambiguity, no ambiguity that the sentence could be meant to resolve is described or suggested.
C The sentence does nothing to reconcile opposing views; it articulates a vision of a possible future that it attributes to those who oppose wage-reduction concessions by labor unions.
D Correct. The sentence presents a hypothesis about the possible long-term consequences of labor-union concessions that would result in significantly lower wages.
E Accepted data can be contradicted only by alternative datasets, but the sentence an question does not provide alternative data, only a prediction of what the future might bring for workers’ material welfare if drastic wage reductions were to be conceded by labor unions.
The correct answer is D.
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