Hey All,

Hopefully I can help with this one. The passage itself uses a lot of confusing verbiage to make you think it's very technical, but the reality is pretty straightforward. One can go at it from a draw a conclusion standpoint, but it functions weirdly well as a straightforward find the assumption question:

Conclusion: Gov't should only outlaw strikes when nobody else can do the work.

Premises: Without strikes, disputes settled by binding arbitration. This is a costly mistake.

The question we have to ask is WHY is this a costly mistake? Only one thing would explain it.

Assumption: Binding arbitration is good for the workers/bad for the gov't. (i.e. gov't loses more $ on this kind of dispute).

(A) Where public-service workers are permitted to strike, contract negotiations with those workers are typically settled without a strike.
Problem: The question here is about whether strikes can be bad for government, not whether or not they happen.

(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.
Problem: This is what the conclusion recommends, but it doesn't help us understand why.

(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.
Answer: Aha. Now we're told that binding arbitration tends to help out the worker bees. Interesting.

(D) Most categories of public-sector workers have no counterparts in the private sector.
Problem: We don't care about the private sector, or really whether or not "most" categories have counterparts elsewhere.

(E) A strike by workers in a local government is unlikely to be settled without help from an arbitrator.
Problem: That wasn't the question. The question is whether it's better to do it through binding arbitration (which is what you get without a strike), or the type of arbitration you get after a strike (which conforms to precedent).

Hope that helps!

Tommy Wallach
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IMO C -

It is hard to distinguish between Facts and Claims here.

"No permission strike leads to arbitration" is a fact.
"Arbitration is a costly process" sounds more like a claim to me but I am going to assume it is also a fact.

(A) Where public-service workers are permitted to strike, contract negotiations with those workers are typically settled without a strike. - Not inferrable as only public sector workers not allowed to strike are discussed

(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 argument is that only workers with non acceptable substitutes should not be allowed to strike. The author is making the divsion that their are two groups here so we cannot assume all categories.

(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. - this is true as the author is suggesting the government avoid arbitration as it is a costly mistake.

(D) Most categories of public-sector workers have no counterparts in the private sector. - Out of scope. No discussion of private sector.

(E) A strike by workers in a local government is unlikely to be settled without help from an arbitrator. - on the contrary striking workers do not need an arbitrator. It is non striking that need one.

IMO C.

In the stimulus, it is mentioned that when public-service workers prohibited from strikes then their DISPUTES must be settled by binding arbitration. This is what mentioned in C but in a different way:

(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.

I think the last sentence of the stimulus just distracts our reasoning by emphasising on to exclude some crucial public-services from outlaws.


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Conditional Conclusion is OutlawStrike --> NoSubAvail

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. no evidence of this in the statements above
(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. mistaken reversal
(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.no evidence of this in the statements
(E) A strike by workers in a local government is unlikely to be settled without help from an arbitrator. again there is nothing in the statements above that suggests this to be true

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.

Stimulus

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.

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?
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Yes it is really scary. But what a question! Took me 5 minutes
Got stuck between B and C as they said different things, but in really complex ways:

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?

(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 can be inferred, because outlawing strikes would be helpful only IF workers cannot be substituted - basically the workers would be committing a crime by striking. However this is not the conclusion. The conclusion is on arbitration
(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.Yes since stopping it by govt is a 'costly mistake' - if you stop this you cannot arbitrate 'bindingly', and hence not reap the advantages