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Assignment 1. Answer the following questions:
1. What are labour unions or trade unions?
2. What do they do?
3. What can they do when dissatisfied?
4. Who can the government negotiate with if the workers are non-unionized?
Assignment 2. Match up the words with the definitions given below.
1 collective bargaining
2 strike
3 a go-slow (GB) or slowdown (US)
4 working-to-rule
5 industrial action
6 to picket
A a general term for strikes, go-slows, work-to-rules, and so on
B a deliberate reduction in the rate of production, as a protest
C a stoppage of work, as a protest against working conditions, low pay, and so on
D negotiations between unions and employers about their members’ wages and working conditions
E to protest outside a factory or other workplace, and try to persuade workers and delivery drivers not to enter
F deliberately obeying every regulation in an organization, which severely disrupts normal operations
Assignment 3. Read the interview with Denis MacShane, a British Member of Parliament for the Labour Party who previously worked for ten years for the International Metal Workers Union, talking about trade unions.
Interviewer Denis MacShane, what would you say are the functions of trade unions, or labour unions?
Denis MacShane Work is changing all the time, but at the heart of work lies the worker, and as firms get bigger they require many workers, they have to be managed, and unions are a necessary voice for the interests of those workers. It is curious to see that in the new countries that have been in the headlines in recent years, countries like South Korea, or Poland, or South Africa, trade unions have played an enormous dynamic political and economic role. Clearly some of the old attitudes and structures of trade unions in Europe or the United States have became somewhat out of date and they have to be reinvented, but in the end, as long as employees have needs that need to be represented, then I think they’ll need trade unions, and a sensible government, and sensible employers, that want effective social peace, and want also a team-working and dynamic economy, should be encouraging trade unions. The form of trade unions is changing, perhaps the old class war attitude of trade unions is out of date, but again it is interesting to see that some of the most successful economies - I’m thinking of Germany, I’m thinking of Japan - there is a strong trade union presence, it’s recognized by employers, it is accepted as a partner by government.
English for Business Studies Second Edition © Cambridge University Press 2002
1) Summarize briefly what he says about:
a) the role or function of unions
b) the attitude governments and companies should have in relation to unions
2) What do you think MacShane means by the out-of-date class war attitude of
some unions?
3) Do you agree with MacShane’s view of the necessity and usefulness of unions?
4) Now complete the following sentences with these words:
dynamic, employees, employers, partner, peace, represented, role, sensible, team-working, voice
1. Unions are a necessary......... for the interests of workers.
2. In countries like South Korea, or Poland, or South Africa, trade unions have played an enormous...... political and economic...........
3. As long as......... have needs that need to be......... they’ll need trade unions.
4........... employers, that want effective social........ and want also a......... and dynamic economy, should be encouraging trade unions.
5. In some of the most successful economies, a strong trade union presence is
recognized by.......... and accepted as a........ by government.
Assignment 4. Read the following extract from the American author Bill Bryson’s book about Britain, Notes From a Small Island, about the newspaper industry in the 1980s, and answer the questions.
Fleet Street, near the City, London’s financial district, was where British national newspapers had their offices and printing works until the 1980s, when most of them moved to new premises.
To say that Fleet Street in the early 1980s was out of control barely hints at the scale of matters. The National Graphical Association, the printers’ union, decided how many people were needed on each paper (hundreds and hundreds) and how many were to be laid off during a recession (none), and billed the management accordingly. Managements didn’t have the power to hire and fire their own print workers, indeed generally didn’t know how many print workers they employed. I have before me a headline from December 1985 saying ‘Auditors find 300 extra printing staff at Telegraph.’ That is to say, the Telegraph was paying salaries to 300 people who didn’t actually work there. On top of plump salaries, printers received special bonus payments for handling type of irregular sizes, for dealing with heavily edited copy, for setting words in a language other than English, for the white space at the end of lines. If work was done out of house - for instance, advertising copy that was set outside the building - they were compensated for not doing it. In consequence, many senior printers, with skills no more advanced than you would expect to find in any back-street print shop, enjoyed incomes in the top 2 per cent of British earnings. It was crazy.
Now answer the following questions:
1) What does this extract suggest about newspaper managements and the printers' trade union at the time?
2) What does the first sentence - ‘to say that Fleet Street... was out of control barely hints at the scale of matters’ - mean?
3) Bryson makes one statement that probably isn’t true, i.e. is a deliberate exaggeration. Which do you think it is?
4) Do you know what happened to the printers at British newspapers soon after the period Bryson is writing about?
Assignment 5. Find the words from the text that correspond the following definitions.
1) Additional compensation given to an employee above his/her normal wage. It can be used as a reward for achieving specific goals set by the company, or for dedication to the company.
2)Elimination of jobs by a company regardless of how good the employees' performance.
3) A significant decline in activity across the economy, lasting longer than a few months. It is visible in industrial production, employment, real income and wholesale-retail trade.
4) A house or building, together with its land and outbuildings, occupied by a business or considered in an official context.
5) A person who officially examines the accounts of a company.
6) A fixed regular payment made every month to employees doing professional or office work.
Assignment 6. Study the Active vocabulary and give the Ukrainian equivalents of the words and word combinations:
1 collective bargaining
2 strike
3 a go-slow (GB) or slowdown (US)
4 working-to-rule
5 industrial action
6 to picket
7. to disrupt
8. to lay off
9. bonus payments
10. recession
11. team-working
12. premises
13. reduction in the rate of production
14. working conditions
15. plump salaries
16. wages
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