Who needs unions?

1. Read and translate this text:

Manual and service industry workers are often organized in labour unions, which attempt to ensure fair wages, reasonable working hours and safe working conditions for their members. British unions are known as trade unions because, as in Germany, they are largely organized according to trade or skill: there is an engineers’ union, an electricians’ union, a train-drivers’ union and so on. In other countries, including France and Italy, unions are largely political: workers in different industries join unions with a particular political position.Industrial relations tend to be better in countries, industries and companies where communications are good, i.e. where management consult workers on matters that will concern them, where neither side treats the other as an adversary, and when unions do not insist upon the preservation of completely uneconomic jobs and working practices. Although some employers and managers (and political parties) oppose the very existence of unions – even though, like doctors, lawyers, accountants and so on, they might themselves belong to a professional association with similar basic aims – many management theorists stress the necessity of unions. In the 1970s, Peter Drucker wrote that ‘Management is and has to be a power. Any power needs restraint and control – or else it becomes tyranny. The union serves an essential function in industrial society’. Yet one of the chief objectives of right-wing governments in the 1980s (e.g. in Britain and the USA) was to diminish the power of trade unions, and to deregulate labour markets in accordance with the ideal of free markets.

As a result of deregulation, working conditions in many industries in many countries have worsened, leading to the creation of a great many casual, part-time, unskilled jobs done by non-unionized workers. France, for example, has the lowest number of workers in trade unions in the industrialized world. The unions now represent less than 10% of the French work force, and most of those are in the public sector. The vast majority of French workers seem to have rejected the confrontational politics of the main unions, notably the communist-controlled CGT. Consequently, when the largely non-unionized French lorry-drivers blocked all the motorways in the summer of 1992, striking over the introduction of a new driver’s licence with a penalty-point system (and over their working conditions in general), the French government found no one to negotiate with.

In fact, a number of politicians and business leaders are beginning to regret of the weakness of unions. Some managers, including Antoine Riboud, the former head of the huge DANONE food conglomerate, actively encourage unionization because they insist that a big company needs someone to represent and articulate the needs of the employees and act as a social partner to the employer. But there is clearly a problem if workers believe that the unions are incapable of doing this, and choose not to join them.

- Peter Drucker: An Introductory View of Management

II Answer these questions:

1. For whom and why were labour unions created?
2. Why are British unions known as trade unions?
3. What unions are there in France and Italy?
4. In what countries are industrial relations better and why?
5. Why should management be restrained and controlled?
6. What is the result of deregulation of labour markets?
7. What was the problem in negotiations with French drivers?
8. Why do some politicians and leaders regret the weakness of unions?
9. Why do some workers try not to join unions?

III. Find the words in the text which mean the following:

1. people who work with their hands

2. a union for workers with a particular type of job

3. to ask someone’s opinion before making a decision

4. an opponent or enemy

5. too expensive, wasteful, loss-making

6. unlimited and unfairly used power

7. ending or relaxing restrictive laws

8. areas of the economy run by the local or national government

9. hostile, almost aggressive, seeking conflicts

10. a large corporation, made up of a group of companies

IV. Do some research and write a 100-200 word history of unions in your country. (For example: When were they first founded? Have they always been legal? Have there been periods in which they have been more or less powerful, or important, or necessary, than today?)

V. Match the equivalents:

1. Remuneration	a) Оплата, вознаграждение
2. Cost of living	b) Прожиточный минимум
3. Worth of job	c) Стоимость труда
4. Bonus scheme	d) Система поощрений
5. Minimum wage	e) Минимальная заработная плата
6. Wage schedule	f) Шкала заработной платы
7. Tip	g) Плата сверх принятого уровня

VI. Translate into English:

1. Отношения между администрацией и работниками всегда являлись сложным аспектом трудовых отношений.
2. Активную роль на предприятиях играют профсоюзы, которые ведут переговоры о заключении коллективного договора, регламентирующего рабочее время, условия труда и справедливую оплату труда.
3. Профессиональные объединения необходимы в условиях свободного рынка, так как они представляют нужды работников.
4. Существует мнение, что профсоюзы способствуют дерегулированию рынка труда, однако именно они являются инструментом защиты прав рабочей силы от привлечения специалистов на временную и неквалифицированную работу.
5. Профсоюзы являются важной частью социального партнерства в управлении предприятием.
6. Существует много стратегий поведения работников во время промышленного конфликта: забастовка, замедление темпа работы, работа строго по правилам, пикетирование.
7. Вознаграждение за труд зависит от ряда факторов, таких как стоимость труда и прожиточный минимум.
8. Правительство устанавливает размер минимальной заработной платы.
9. В шкале заработной платы определяются ставки оплаты за сдельную и повременную работу и ставка оклада.
10. В платежных ведомостях указывается оклад до удержания налогов и оклад после удержания налогов.
11. Существуют различные системы поощрений: премии, плата сверх принятого уровня, продажа работникам акций по льготной цене.
12. Предприятия обязаны оплачивать очередные отпуска работников.
13. Существует несколько способов пенсионного обеспечения на рынке труда: коллективный пенсионный вклад, специальный сберегательный счет, освобожденный от налогов, программа продажи акций служащим компании.

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