Consider the following points. Share your ideas with a partner or a small group. Be prepared to explain your answers to the class.

a) What are the main functions of the trade union?

b) What is the reason for trouble in he press room?

c) What are the grounds for Smith’s wage claim?

d) Why does I. Hampden feel that the system of profit sharing should be introduced in the firm?

e) How has I. Hampden managed to make J. Green approve the profit-sharing proposals?

2. Recount the situation as if you were Jack Green, say whether you are in favour of the profit sharing scheme suggested by Ian Hampden.

3. Suppose you are Ted Fielding. Do you approve of the way Ian settled the problem?

4. Speak as if you were Ian Hampden and brief the audience on the chief responsibilities of a Personnel Manager. Is engagement and dismissal of employees his only function?

5. Suppose you are Symes, an employee who stands by the time clock. Brief a trainee on the following matters:

a) what an employee has to do with his time card when he arrives or leaves his place of work;

b) what an employee should expect to happen to his pay if he arrived late at work.

6. Suppose you are the District Organiser of the National Worker’s Union. Say

a) what responsibilities of a shop steward are;

b) if a worker belongs to the union, to whom he pays subscription or union dues;

c) if an employee works late, what extra money he could claim.

7. Act out

a) an imaginary conversation between Ian Hampden and Peter Wiles after Ian’s talk with Jack Green;

b) an imaginary talk between Jack Green and Smith after Green’s talk with Ian Hampden.

Phrase list

Listen to the tape and practise the pronunciation of the following words and word combinations, quote the sentences in which they are used in the unit. Consult a dictionary and translate them into Russian.

private company

Memorandum of Association

authorised capital

to carry a vote (about shares)

to have a controlling interest

to be in a position to take over somebody/something

a fully owned subsidiary

to outvote somebody

personal loan

the rate of interest

to ask for security

to hold the deeds of somebody

building society

to repay a proportion of the loan to somebody plus interest

to agree to a second mortgage (the mortgage with...)

to raise a mortgage on somebody’s property

to give (to advance) an unsecured loan

to have the lion’s share with fifty per cent

the solicitor

to form a trust

to raise a loan

the total share capital

to see somebody at short notice

an overdraft

to provide (an adequate) security

to have somebody’s record of business as a guarantee

to have a straight loan

to pay two per cent above the bank rate

to get a holding equal to something