raafsa wrote:
One problem with labor unions today is that their top staffs consist of college-trained lawyers, economists, and labor relations experts who cannot understand the concerns of real workers. One goal of union reform movements should be to build staffs out of workers who have come up from the ranks of the industry involved.
The argument above depends primarily on which of the following assumptions?
(A) Higher education lessens people’s identification with their class background.
(B) Union staffs should include more people with first-hand industrial supervisory experience.
(C) People who have worked in a given industry can understand the concerns of workers in that industry.
(D) Most labor unions today do not fairly represent workers’ interests.
(E) A goal of union reform movements should be to make unions more democratic.
Dear
raafsa,
I'm happy to respond.
I will explain this using, among other things, the
Negation Test.
(A)
Higher education lessens people’s identification with their class background.
The folks in the top staff now seem to be these college-educated people. The problem, though, is that we don't know their class origin. We might assume that any lawyer working on the staff of a labor union had working class origins, but we don't know that this is the case.
Let's use the Negation test, and assume the polar opposite:
Higher education galvanizes people’s identification with their class background. Now, suppose all these lawyers and economist and labor relationship experts are actually upper class elite people. Higher education keeps them this way, and the argument is still valid. This is not an assumption.
(B)
Union staffs should include more people with first-hand industrial supervisory experience.
This is really out of scope. Workers who have come up through the ranks may not be in industrial supervisory positions. This is simply irrelevant.
(C)
People who have worked in a given industry can understand the concerns of workers in that industry.
Assume the negation:
People who have worked in a given industry have absolutely no understanding of the concerns of workers in that industry. If that were true, then these workers would be the very last people who should be running the union. Negating this decimates the argument. That's the hallmark of a good assumption.
(D)
Most labor unions today do not fairly represent workers’ interestsNegation: "
Most labor unions today fairly represent workers’ interests." Let's say that 90% of labor unions are entirely fair. That still could mean that the last 10% are unfair, and this argument should still be considered. We can negate this and the argument still works. This is not an assumption.
(E)
A goal of union reform movements should be to make unions more democratic.
Out of scope. We are not talking about perfect democracy. We don't know how these "top staffs" get into that position, and even if workers who came up through the ranks joined the top ranks, it's not clear that they would be voted into that level by some democratic process. This is irrelevant.
The best answer is
(C), the OA.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)