 Industrial Practices & Labour Situation in Germany
Hello!
Please, check this composition for mistakes, stylistic inaccuracies, etc.
Source: English Vocabulary in Use Advanced, p.137, ex.59.4;
Task: Write a (short) composition (of about 100-150) words describing the pattern of industrial practices in your country. Describe the labour situation, trade union rights, the right to strike, minimum wage, the role of multinationals, and so on, using as much vocabulary from the opposite page as you can.
My remark: I either have limited knowledge of how labour system works or simply don't know the according facts (e.g. minimum wage), so I omitted or exaggerated some points; I used some more vocabulary from other sources, so the number of words apparently ran over the 100-150-mark.
Composition:
Germany is experiencing a constant change in industrial practices due to worsening political and economical situation.
The bad political decisions, that have been made by the government in recent years, have had, as it seems, a devastating impact on job market and labour situation in general. The number of the unemployed has risen dramatically to up to 5 million, at the rate one would have never imagined before. Most of registered job losses come from manufacturing industry as well as service industry, as large companies relocate or switch their productions abroad. The best opportunity to do this came with EU-expansion, which opened the way for many companies to build sweatshops easily all over the eastern part of Europe. At the same time, cuts in salary and downsizing in the workforce have made redundant large numbers of qualified professionals, who now see no prospect in their own country and move abroad in hope to find luring job offers there.
The economy in Germany is more dependent on big multinationals now than ever before. This seems paradoxical, because the German Labour Party should actually support state ownership more than privatisation, introducing public-private partnerships and thus protecting the rights of employees. As a matter of fact, this is not the case today. The practice of saving budget money by cutting down on subsidies and sweeteners for large enterprises and small businesses has become a common feature of the government policy. As a result of this cost-cutting exercise, many companies use inward investment as the only financial support for their business. Some were even partially overtaken by international corporations. The best example is Opel with the governing body in General Motors.
German trade unions are facing the biggest challenges ever, as more and more employees turn to them for help. Their major right – the right of job security – is being infringed continuously. At the forefront of high-tech revolution in industry many work tasks are taken over by machines and employees are made redundant as a result. Many have to be retrained or reskilled but reeducation is too cost-intensive for most of the companies. Adverse working conditions, poor incentive schemes and the resulting stress and job dissatisfaction contribute to all this and eventually people go on strike.
The overall situation, as it seems, is not going to improve before the announced general reelection of Parliament.
Last edited by manifold; 12-Jun-2005 at 17:58.
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