Critical Reasoning

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.

Please provide reasoning behind your answer. Thanks.

Conclusion: No strikes for those w/o substitutes

Evidence: Labor disputes with NO strikes = settled by arbitration w/o settlements

Assumption: The cost of the settlements for the strikes for those WITH subs is LESS than the $$ lost by settling all disputes w/ NO strikes.

Question Rephrase: What can be FURTHER concluded BASED on this premise?

Prediction: See Assumption. Correct answer must relate subs/non-subs to costliness.

IMO: C

A - doesn't relate to costliness
B - Like D, this focuses on the subs/non-subs breakdown but does not relate to the $$$, or why the author is advocating a certain way of handling strikes/arbitration.
C - This correctly explains WHY arbitration is costly when strikes aren't allowed.
D - The breakdown of the subs/non-subs is irrelevant. Does not relate to the "costliness" which is the crux of the entire argument.
E - irrelevant

I was confused between B and C and finally chose B as I felt C is too extreme because of the word 'only'.

A: Worst comparision
B: Correct
C: Extreme
D: Worst comparision again!
E: Arbitrators are workers, so does not fit in!

OA please!

Even I chose the answer as B. but where is the OA.

I opted for C because B tells that no substitute is available for any type of workers. That is contrary to the premise that says that "Strikes should be outlawed only for categories of public-sector workers for whose services no acceptable substitute exists".

I'd have chosen C by process of elimination.

Why is C???

I don't get it, why is not D???

The statement clearly says that "Strikes should be outlawed only for categories of public-sector workers" why does it have anything to do with the "binding arbitration"????

Why is C?

sunnyjohn 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.

Please provide reasoning behind your answer. Thanks.

tracyyahoo wrote:Why is C???

I don't get it, why is not D???

How can you justify D? By my reading of the statement, we are not told how many public-sector workers have counterparts in the private sector.

IMO answer is - B

OA is C.

I did some research and this appears to be from 1000CR. Not my favorite source.

By the way, what a subject line! I am not sure this is an "800 ++ CR question."

This is an inference question, but it is a bit unusual because it already has a conclusion. We can still apply the same techniques that we normally would for an inference question -- namely process of elimination - and, because we have a conclusion here we can point to the "hidden truth" on this inference question. A "hidden truth" is like an assumption answer and it can usually be found on an inference question that has a conclusion.

So what is the hidden truth? Start with the conclusion, which states "Strikes should be outlawed only for categories of public-sector workers for whose services no acceptable substitute exists" and should not be outlawed for other categories of public service workers.

So why not outlaw strikes for all workers? The premise is that to outlaw strikes for all workers is costly because it would result in disputes being "settled by binding arbitration, without any negotiated public-sector labor settlements guiding the arbitrators." In other words, if there are no strikes that end with a negotiated agreement - like when the auto workers negotiate a new contract with Ford or GM - then there is no guidance for the arbitrator to go by and this means that the arbitrator might give too much to the workers and THAT is costly for the local government.

If, on the other hand, the onlyworkers prohibited from striking are those that are irreplaceable, like police and firefighters, then the other categories - like bus drivers or office workers, can negotiate a settlement and this can then serve to guide arbitrators when they make their decisions in the cases of the police, firefighters, etc. who are not allowed to go on strike. So by allowing the bus drivers and office workers to strike the government saves on those contracts as compared to arbitration and then saves on the contracts that have to go to arbitration - the police, firefighters, etc.

Anyway, now that we fully understand the question we can see that in order for both the premise and conclusion to be true there is a "hidden truth" that the workers would be overpaid if arbitration is the means used for all public sector employees. This is the only way that the local government would be making a "costly mistake." Choice C lines up exactly with our hidden truth.

Does that help??

David@VeritasPrep wrote:OA is C.

Does that help??

Of course! Your thorough responses always help!

PS, You're at 999 posts. I hope you have something big planned for #1000!!

Thanks Chieftang for the encouragement...
I have just posted "The best from David Newland's first 1000 posts"
Hopefully there are some items included that you have not read!

You really made my day by noticing that I was at 999.

And now this posting is the first of my next 1000!

Happy New Year!
David

Hi David,

Though C makes sense as per your explanation, yet I am not fully convinced.

Option 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.

Won't Option C been better if it said - "Binding arbitration tends to be more advantageous/economical for government"?

Aren't we assuming that workers would be overpaid if arbitration is the means used for all public sector employees? may be workers are not overpaid and just being paid fairly if paid through arbitration.

From C, we can however, conclude that Binding arbitration tends not to be more advantageous for government as government has to pay more.

Thanks!

David@VeritasPrep wrote:OA is C.
Anyway, now that we fully understand the question we can see that in order for both the premise and conclusion to be true there is a "hidden truth" that the workers would be overpaid if arbitration is the means used for all public sector employees. This is the only way that the local government would be making a "costly mistake." Choice C lines up exactly with our hidden truth.
Does that help??

Actually the way that you have re-worded it would point answer choice C in the wrong direction.

Remember, we need for it to be "a costly mistake" for local government to use binding arbitration for all employees.

So the way that you have written answer choice C it would actually be False and not an inference.

It does not matter if workers are overpaid with arbitration or just paid fairly - the point is that they MUST be paid more through arbitration. That is the only way that it is "a costly mistake for the local government."

Look at the logic of it, What if workers were NOT paid more when binding arbitration is the only option? In other words, what is C is not true? In this case there is no logic for the statement that it would be a "costly mistake" for local governments.