fanatico wrote:
For a local government to outlaw all strikes by its workers is a costly mistake, because all its labor disputes must then be settled by binding arbitration, without any negotiated public-sector labor settlements guiding the arbitrators. Strikes should be outlawed only for categories of public-sector workers for whose services no acceptable substitute exists.
The statements above best support which of the following conclusions?
(A) Where public-service workers are permitted to strike, contract negotiations with those workers are typically settled without a strike.
(B) Where strikes by all categories of pubic-sector workers are outlawed, no acceptable substitutes for the services provided by any of those workers are available.
(C) Binding arbitration tends to be more advantageous for public-service workers where it is the only available means of settling labor disputes with such workers.
(D) Most categories of public-sector workers have no counterparts in the private sector.
(E) A strike by workers in a local government is unlikely to be settled without help from an arbitrator.
Okay. First, the language of the question is really hard. I don't know whether everybody knows binding arbitration and what not. I think that GMAT assumes no outside knowledge for questions. I would like experts to comment on this.
IanStewart mikemcgarry please see this.
second, I think that people are rejecting option B for all the wrong reasons. I'm not saying that its not wrong, it is, but the reason for rejecting this lies in subtlety of the words in it. My answer is B. I chose it after doing elimination. My last contenders were B and C.
Let me rewrite the stimulus and option B with highlighted words that make all the difference.
StimulusFor a local government to outlaw all strikes by its workers is a costly mistake, because all its labor disputes must then be settled by binding arbitration, without any negotiated public-sector labor settlements guiding the arbitrators.
Strikes should be outlawed only for categories of public-sector workers for whose services no acceptable substitute exists.Option B(B) Where strikes by all categories of pubic-sector workers are outlawed,
no acceptable substitutes for the services provided by any of those workers are available.This option makes a mistake in categorization. The stimulus states..
Strikes should be outlawed only for
categories of public-sector workers for whose services no acceptable substitute exists.. Its talking about the
categories of workers whose services are irreplaceable.
The options states..
(B) Where strikes by all categories of pubic-sector workers are outlawed,
no acceptable substitutes for the services provided by any of those workers are available.The options talks about "every worker" not "category of those workers". This would mean the following situation..
Let's say that there is a dept. of landmarks construction, and it has 100 employed workers. Now, if the service of any of these 100 workers is irreplaceable, then the govt. cannot outlaw strikes by the whole dept.
This clearly is not what the stimulus means.
This question took a lot of time. Experts, is this a GMAT like question?