SECTION I Time 35 minutes 27 Questions
Directions: Each passage in this section is followed by a group of questions to be answered on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage. For some of the questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer, that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question, and blacken the corresponding space on your answer sheet.
The Taft-Hartley Act, passed by the United States Con美国GREss in 1947, gave states the power to enact “right-to-work” legislation that prohibits union shop a美国GREements. According to such an a美国GREement, a labor union negotiates wages and working conditions for all workers in a business, and all workers are required to belong to the union. Since 1947, 20 states have adopted right-to-work laws. Much of the literature concerning right-to-work laws implies that such legislation has not actually had a significant impact. This point of view, however, has not gone uncriticized. Thomas V Carroll has proposed that the conclusions drawn by previous researchers are attributable to their myopic focus on the premise that, unless right-to-work laws significantly reduce union membership within a state, they have no effect. Carroll argues that the right-to-work laws “do matter” in that such laws generate differences in real wages across states. Specifically, Carroll indicates that while right-to-work laws may not “destroy” unions by reducing the absolute number of unionized workers, they do impede the spread of unions and thereby reduce wages within right-to-work states. Because the countervailing power of unions is weakened in right-to-work states, manufacturers and their suppliers can act cohesively in competitive labor markers, thus lowering wages in the affected industries.
Such a finding has important implications regarding the demographics of employment and wages in right-to-work states. Specifically, if right-to-work laws lower wages by weakening union power, minority workers can be expected to suffer a relatively 美国GREater economic disadvantage in right-to-work states than in union shop states. This is so because, contrary to what was once thought, union tend to have a significant positive impact on the economic position of minority workers, especially Black workers, relative to White workers. Most studies concerned with the impact of unionism on the Black worker’s economic position relative to the White worker’s have concentrated on the changes in Black wages due to union membership. That is, they have concentrated on union versus nonunion groups. In a pioneering study, however, Ashenfelter finds that these studies overlook an important fact: although craft unionism increase the differential between the wages of White workers and Black workers due to the traditional exclusion of minority workers from unions in the craft sectors of the labor market, strong positive wage gains are made by Black workers within industrial unions. In fact, Ashenfelter estimates that industrial unionism decreases the differential between the wages of Black workers and White workers by about 3 percent. If state right-to-work laws weaken the economic power of unions to raise wages, Black workers will experience a disproportionate decline in their relative wage positions. Black workers in right-to-work states would therefore experience a decline in their relative economic positions unless there is strong economic growth in right-to-work states, creating labor shortages and thereby driving up wages.英语作文
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