yastrebova-vladykina_uchebnik_2_kursa

8. Texts

a) UK criticised by the UN for lagging behind on workers rights

The UN has called on governments around the world to provide better protection for workers as job insecurity1 rises as a consequence of globalisation.

In its latest World Labour Report, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says that a very large majority of the world’s workers have no insurance against unemployment, ill health or old age. This problem is naturally at its worst in the developing world, however the ILO says it is also becoming tougher for workers in Europe and North America to claim social benefits.

The UK is highlighted as offering less protection than almost any other Western European countries for those out of work and seeking to claim benefits. Fewer people out of work in Britain receive unemployment benefits and those who do receive them get a lesser amount than elsewhere in Europe. The report’s author says that this has led to a hire and fire culture2 in the UK.

While the unemployed in Spain get 77% of the country’s average earnings, the jobless in Britain receive only around 30% of the average wage, which is available for twelve months. This position looks very poor compared to our Scandinavian counterparts such as Sweden and Denmark. There the out of work receive benefits worth more than 60% of the average wage that can be claimed for up to five years.

There are some mitigating circumstances in the UK, however. We do benefit from a wider level of social assistance benefits which support people without jobs, but the author of the ILO report, Mr Seattle, says that this actually contributes to the poverty trap, where people are better off staying on benefits than getting a low-paid job. This may be a significant factor in explaining why there are more jobless households in Britain than in any other EU country, as it does not pay for them to go out and get a job.

Tackling this issue was made a key priority by the UK Government at the start of their term of office. They have since introduced a series of reforms designed to make getting a job a better option by introducing tax benefits for lowpaid workers.

b)

По данным Госкомстата за последний год безработица в стране выросла, но в то же время зарегистрированных безработных стало меньше. Из почти 9 мл. россиян (12,4% экономически активного населения), ищущих любую работу, лишь около 2 млн захотели встать на учет в службе занятости. По мнению Федерации независимых профсоюзов России, безработными на самом деле нужно считать не 9 млн, а 23,5 млн человек. Профсоюзы в своих подсчетах считают безработными и, в частности, те 5 млн. россиян, которым не платят зарплату более 4 месяцев.

Для официально зарегистрированных безработных существует программа материальной поддержки в виде пособий по безработице, материальной помощи, дотаций (субсидий), компенсаций, досрочных пенсий и стипендий при профессиональном обучении.

Размер минимального пособия по безработице (для никогда не работавших) составляет 85 рублей, тогда как среднее значение приближается к 700 рублям. Максимальное пособие превышает 2000 рублей. Размер максимального пособия зависит от средней по региону заработной платы (в Москве пособие сейчас составляет 2500 рублей).

Предполагается изменить оплату, ограничив максимальное пособие размером прожиточного минимума (subsistence level), а нижний предел его 20% размером.

Это, с одной стороны позволит повысить минимальное пособие, а с другой – стимулировать тех, кто получает максимальное пособие, к более активному поиску работы.

Порядок выплат пособия таков: первые три месяца 75% от прежней зарплаты, следующие четыре месяца 60%, а до конца года – 45%.

Особое место в комплексе мер по борьбе с безработицей занимает создание новых рабочих мест и профессиональное обучение безработных, в первую очередь, молодежи. Так, в Москве создана программа «Молодеж-

1a situation when one is afraid to lose one’s job at any time

2a situation when people have difficulty getting a job and lose it easily

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ная практика», рассчитанная на желающих овладеть новой профессией прямо на рабочем месте, либо получивших образование, но не имеющих опыта работы. За каждого участника программы – неопытного специалиста – городские власти доплачивают работодателю. Ежемесячные дотации составляют пять минимальных зарплат на каждого работника.

Однако самая настойчивая рекомендация Комитета труда и занятости – держаться за свою работу и постоянно повышать свою квалификацию.

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APPENDIX II

1. Some -ly intensifiers: common collocations

absolutely delicious, amazingly good at, awfully nice,

beautifully simple, beautifully organized, bitterly cold, bitterly disappointed, brilliantly clever, brilliantly designed, completely successful, completely finished, considerably better, considerably cheaper, cruelly disappointed, cruelly afflicted, dangerously ill, dangerously wounded, dearly loved,

deeply sorry, deeply hurt, definitely mistaken,

dreadfully late, dreadfully annoyed, entirely irresponsible,

(e) specially nice, exceedingly good,

extremely interesting, extremely surprised, fearfully boring, fearfully confused,

fully satisfied,

gravely ill, gravely worried, greatly impressed,

hideously ugly, hideously expensive, highly intelligent,

hopelessly confused,

horribly painful, horribly wounded, immensely rich,

incredibly beautiful, incredibly surprised, intensely cold, intensely concerned, keenly interested,

literally amazing, he literally believes, mortally ill, mortally offended, outstandingly good / well / original, painfully shy, painfully embarrassed, particularly clever,

perfectly sweet,

pleasantly agreeable, pleasantly surprised, richly deserved, richly rewarded, seriously upset, seriously depressed, severely ill, severely criticized,

sharply accurate, sharply critical, simply wonderful,

strikingly attractive, strikingly obvious, superbly fit, superbly cooked,

terribly rude, totally idiotic, utterly stupid,

violently ill, violently opposed to, wonderfully clever

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2. A Sample Survey Report

Survey of Academic and General Reading in English

On 8th February 1999, a survey was conducted among 16 overseas postgraduate students at the University of England. The purpose of the survey was to discover the reading habits in English of the students.

The survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire given to the students to complete. The first part of the questionnaire dealt with the type of reading and its frequency. The second section was concerned with newspapers: the type of items read and those that were read first.

From the table of data, the most significant items are as follows. In the first section 81% of the students regularly read academic books, while 44% regularly read academic journals. Nothing else is read regularly or often by 40% or more of the students. The following comments can be made about the reading of newspapers, magazines and fiction. 75% sometimes read regional or local newspapers, 69% sometimes read books of fiction, 62% sometimes read general magazines, and 56% sometimes read national daily newspapers. On the other hand, 37% never read Sunday newspapers and 31% never read fiction.

In the second section, not surprisingly, 100% read news about their own country in newspapers and 56% read this first. 94% read international news, 25% read this first. 81% read about Britain and look at radio and TV information. The only other item that is usually read by more than 50% of the students is current affairs (read by 56%).

If any conclusions may be drawn from the data, they are, perhaps, as follows. Overseas students presumably have little time for general reading: most of their reading time is spent on books and journals on their own subject. Outside their studies, apart from reading news about their own country, international news, and news about Britain, they probably spend most time watching TV and listening to the radio.

/from Academic Writing Course by R.R. Jordan/

3. The Portrait of a Canadian Workaholic

Note: percentages refer to population aged 15 and over who reported being workaholics

Workaholics are nearly twice as likely as others to try to accomplish more than they can handle

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1. Refers to the 2 weeks preceding the survey.

Note: Percentages refer to population aged 15 and over.

Source: Statistics Canada, General Social Survey, 1998. The survey interviewed a sample of nearly 11,000 Canadians aged 15 and over living in private households in the ten provinces.

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APPENDIX III

I. Files for the Role Play “Workshop: Sustainable Urban Development”

File 1.

Curitiba’s “Voluntary Sustainability”

1.Large urban areas throughout the world are increasingly faced with environmental degradation as well as economic and social problems, such as unemployment, violence and a lack of community. Curitiba, Brazil, a city which grew from half a million residents in 1965 to 1.5 million inhabitants today was no exception to these typical urban problems.

2.Over the past ten years, however, Curitiba has been undergoing a replanning and redesigning process which has had unprecedented success and has come to serve as a model of sustainable urban planning. Curitiba has come to be known as the “ecological capital of Brazil”. This reputation was initiated primarily by the vision and efforts of the city’s Mayor, Jaime Lerner.

3.Lerner began the process of redesigning Curitiba by addressing the transportation system in the city. A complete overhaul of transportation in the city has produced: express bus lanes for faster service; access to buses through the city, with buses running the complete length of the city streets; and a special rapid boarding system that has cut boarding time in half. The city buses are privately owned with no direct financial subsidy. Two thirds of Curitibans now use public transportation, and there is 25% less congestion in Curitiba than in cities of similar size, which has led to noticeably cleaner air.

4.Retired buses are either used as mobile training centers or as free transportation to parks and open spaces. These mobile training centers serve as education facilities for Curitibans, who pay $1.00 to take courses in auto mechanics, electricity, typing, hair dressing, artisan work or the like. At the end of these training courses the students are placed in jobs throughout the city or they often start their own businesses.

5.The park and open space situation in Curitiba has drastically improved over the past 25 years. In 1970 only 5 square feet of open space per resident existed. Today there is 559 square feet per resident. 1.3 million trees have been planted, 16 parks have been developed, and 1000 plazas were established throughout the city.

6.One key aspect of the revitalization of Curitiba has been the participatory and voluntary nature under which these changes throughout the city have been implemented. For example, recycling was introduced in Curitiba’s schools, and children quickly caught on and convinced their parents to sort their garbage at home and to recycle. Today, two thirds of the city’s daily garbage (100 tons) is recycled. Recovering alcoholics and homeless people are actively employed in the recycling program, and proceeds earned from the recycling go back into social services provided by the city for its residents. The recycling program is voluntary, not mandatory, and awards participants with food and transportation vouchers. Over 22,000 families throughout the city now participate in the recycling program.

7.The success of recycling has produced less environmental damage citywide, which has, in turn, reduced the infant mortality rate and disease rate, particularly in impoverished areas of Curitiba. Serious environmental problems do remain, however, as parts of the city are not connected to the sewer system and still suffer from extreme environmental damage.

8.Curitibans hope that environmental education, combined with structural improvements, will improve this situation. Environmental education has been introduced in most of the schools, and after school classes in ecology are offered in poorer sections of the city where the parents of children often work later in the day. Lerner also established a “university for the environment” with open entrance a few years ago.

9.The success of Curitiba has resulted from the visionary leadership of Lerner as well as the cooperative efforts by the city’s residents themselves. As Lerner notes, the follow-up to projects that are implemented throughout the city is very important. Curitibans need to play an integral part in the planning process because they are the ones who will determine the success or failure of a program, and adjustments often need to be made in projects that don’t work as planned. At the core of Curitiba’s success is the vision of a city as a structure where people both live and work. Curitibans are happy in their environment and take pride in their city because they are creating and maintaining systems that work, such as transportation, recreation, and education.

** *

10.Given Brazil’s economic situation, Lerner had to think small, cheap and participatory – which was how he was thinking anyway. He provided 1.5 million tree seedlings to neighbourhoods for them to plant and care for. (“There is little in the architecture of a city that is more beautifully designed than a tree,” says Lerner.)

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11.He met resistance from shopkeepers when he proposed turning the downtown shopping district into a pedestrian zone, so he suggested a thirty-day trial. The zone was so popular that shopkeepers on the other streets asked to be included. Now one pedestrian street, the Rua das Flores, is lined with gardens tended by street children.

12.Orphaned or abandoned street children are a problem all over Brazil. Lerner got each industry, shop and institution to “adopt” a few children, providing them with a daily meal and a small wage in exchange for simple maintenance, gardening or office chores.

13.Concentric circles of local bus lines connect to five lines that radiate from the centre of the city in a spider web pattern. On the radial lines, triple-compartment buses in their own traffic lanes carry three hundred passengers each. They go as fast as subway cars, but at one-eightieth the construction cost.

14.The buses stop at Plexiglas tube stations designed by Lerner. Passengers pay their fares, enter through one end of the tube, and exit from the other end. This system eliminates paying on board, and allows faster loading and unloading, less idling and air pollution, and a sheltered place for waiting – though the system is so efficient that there isn’t much waiting. There isn’t much littering either. There isn’t time.

/from “Curitiba and its visionary mayor”/.

* * *

In his speech Mr Cassio Taniguchi, Mayor of Curitiba mentioned that the basic philosophy of the green planning in Curitiba is the following: “man is the measure of all things”. Administrative bodies cannot and should not take care of everything, the citizen should also be concerned and take action. One major feature of urban planning in Curitiba has been the banning of traffic out of the main street, followed by the introduction of the basic road system and the structural axes. Mr Taniguchi gave some detailed information on the Curitiba transport system, waste separation and education programmes. Fuel consumption in Curitiba is 25% less than in comparable cities in Brazil and around 70% of the trips per day are made with public transport. Currently, 10% of the waste is recycled (Germany: 35%) and going up. One big remaining problem is waste water treatment. With support of the State of Parana, in 2002 80% of the waste water will be treated in a sewage plant.

/from “The World’s Best Managed City” by Neal R. Pearce/

File 2.

Влияние городской среды на здоровье населения

По данным ежегодного государственного доклада «О состоянии окружающей природной среды Москвы в 1999 г.» на протяжении последних пяти лет практически не меняется ситуация с перечнем наиболее острых экологических проблем, волнующих жителей города. К ним относятся: плохое состояние атмосферного воздуха, качество питьевой воды, загрязненность Москвы-реки и ее притоков, антисанитария дворов и улиц, состояние зеленых насаждений, уровни шума и радиации.

Вкачестве первоочередных мер по улучшению экологической обстановки в городе оказались:

постепенное закрытие промышленных зон и вывод опасных для здоровья предприятий с территории города;

преимущественное развитие экологически чистого транспорта (троллейбус, трамвай, метро);

строительство Третьего транспортного кольца.

Сегодня глобальная экологическая задача безопасного и устойчивого развития вынуждает городские власти решать проблемы очистки питьевой и сточной воды, утилизации бытового мусора и промышленных отходов, защиты воздушной среды от автомобильных выхлопов и сотни других, казалось бы, мелких, частных задач.

Известно, что Москва, как один из огромных мегаполисов мира, в силу объективных причин – географического положения, высокой плотности населения, а также ряда субъективных факторов социально-экономи- ческого развития страны оказалась в тяжелом положении. С целью оздоровления окружающей среды и улучшения экологической обстановки в 1999 г. разработана «Концепция обеспечения экологической безопасности города Москвы на период 2001 года и более отдаленную перспективу». Ее цель состоит в определении основных направлений и методов обеспечения устойчивого развития города, экологической безопасности населения.

Огромное значение для города имеет реабилитация экологии. Это, вроде бы, понятно всем, но продолжают вырубаться деревья, и намного больше, чем сажается. Продолжается тенденция тех времен, когда были уничтожены огромные зеленые массивы, речки загнаны в трубы, а теперь нужно все это реабилитировать.

Экологическое состояние города, в целом, понемногу улучшается. По данным СЭС, уровень загрязненности воздуха снижается по ряду вредных веществ. Основным «загрязнителем» атмосферы и источником шума попрежнему остается автотранспорт. Плотность его движения в столице остается высокой. 80 процентов городских магистралей, по оценкам специалистов, практически исчерпали свою пропускную способность, а для центра эта цифра составляет 90 процентов.

Москва, как известно, имеет радиально-кольцевую структуру. Именно ее градостроительные аналитики столицы и называют основной причиной пробок на улицах нашего города. Выход в дополнении дорожной сети Мо-

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сквы кольцевыми магистралями, расширении улиц, строительстве разворотных «карманов», улучшении дорожных покрытий, налаживании работы светофоров.

Внастоящее время в Москве строятся новые жилые районы. Главной проблемой для них становится отсутствие рабочих мест. Отсюда огромные встречные транспортные потоки, когда люди тратят по несколько часов, чтобы добраться до своей работы и вернуться домой. Необходимо практически создавать комплексную жилую среду. Она предусмотрена в проектах, но не исполняется в действительности.

Вгороде должны быть расширены ареалы с исторической планировкой и застройкой, с характерными признаками исторического и культурного ландшафта, сохранены на всей территории историческая радиальнокольцевая структура, открытые пространства, долины Москвы-реки и ее притоков, рельеф города.

/В.Л. Сидорчук,Российская экономическая академия им. Г.В. Плеханова/

File 3.

The Joy of an American City Renascent

There are disparate benefits and burdens of the road situation in this country. There are higher average traffic speeds, but more congestion delay. We get unprecedented resource utilization and degradation. The trends all move us toward: a massive collapse of ecosystems; a higher share of our income devoted to transportation; unprecedented mobility for some, but less access for others; and declining access to jobs for the poor and those without cars. In Atlanta, a $35 billion 20-year transportation plan worsens access to jobs for those without cars for the first 15 years of the plan.

High speed roads ultimately suck the life out of our cities and inner suburban neighborhoods, spur sprawl and downtown decay. Ultimately, pedestrians are marginalized and the ability to use transit is reduced.

For every 100% increase in road capacity, we can expect about a 30%-120% increase in traffic (with about an average of 80%). Expanding roads to solve congestion is like buying bigger pants to cure obesity. When road capacity disappears, so does much of the traffic. Here are some examples:

London: reducing traffic capacity at 100 locations cut congestion by 25%;

Phoenix: the highway system was tripled and congestion got worse from 1988-2000;

Washington, D.C. cutting 100 miles of road capacity (5%) saved $800 million and resulted in a .6% drop in VMT

(vehicle miles travelled) and a 1% drop in NOx production.

The Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) has done some research showing that sprawl means households spend more on transportation. Also, a new study from Smart Growth America (SGA) shows that highly sprawling metro areas have much more ozone pollution than the least sprawling areas.

There are a number of adverse health effects related to traffic. The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) estimates these effects cost $40-$65 billion a year which amounts to a hidden tax on each household of $600 a year for adverse health impacts. There are studies showing that the closer you live to higher volumes of traffic, the higher your likelihood of getting cancer, including childhood leukemia, and respiratory disease. These problems are related to diesel exhaust, brake and tire dust. Ozone also causes asthma, lung damage, and illness in children and increases the risk of stroke mortality.

175 million people live in areas that fail to meet adequate health protections for ozone. This problem could hardly be solved through new technology. Even with clean technologies, we are not close to solving the problem. Big roads also cause less walking, more bad accidents, and obesity.

A key alternative to more big roads is to create walkable communities. We need to scale roads correctly to slow traffic, boost access, and improve safety, that is build many small streets in place of freeways. This is cheaper than building large roads. Slow street grids work more efficiently.

There are, of course, new technologies and new opportunities to combat congestion, such as intelligent vehicle highway systems where vehicles perceive those in front of them and have tighter headways, variable message signs, and electronic toll congestion. But these are expensive alternatives. To declare the highway system finished and to find ways to manage it more effectively is a much wiser approach.

/ from Summary of Symposium Proceedings. Tackling Traffic Congestion. October 2002. California

File 4.

Car Culture Foils Effort To Manage City’s Traffic

SHANGHAI – When officials drew up the blueprints for the redesign of this city in the early 1980’s, many a skyscraper punctuated the low-slung horizon, whose buildings mostly dated from the decades of Western control early in the last century.

The hugely ambitious plans called for Shanghai to be built anew. And among the top priorities in a city previously dominated by bicycles was avoiding the most common plagues of the automobile age – unmanageable traffic and unbearable pollution.

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Enormous sums were spent on spectacular bridges, elevated highways and a brand-new subway system. But today, glance out the window of one of this city’s 3,000 high-rises around 6 p.m., when snarling masses of horn-honking cars congeal in gridlock, and it is hard to escape the impression that Shanghai, at least for now, is losing the battle.

As people in this richest of Chinese cities have grown more and more affluent, they have displayed an American-style passion for the automobile. For Shanghai, as for much of China, getting rich and growing attached to cars have increasingly become fashionable and have produced side effects familiar in cities that have long been addicted to automobiles, from filthy air and stressful commutes to sharply rising oil consumption.

China accounts for about 12 percent of the world’s energy demand, but its consumption is growing at more than four times the global rate.

The country’s top environmental officials have warned of ecological and economic doom if China continues to follow this pattern. But in cities like Shanghai, where automobiles account for 70 percent to 80 percent of air pollution, nothing seems capable of stopping, or even slowing, the rapid rise of a car culture.

This is not for lack of trying. In one attempt to slow the growth of automobile traffic, the city has raised the fees for car registrations every year since 2000, doubling them over that time to about $4,600 per vehicle – more than twice the city’s per capita income.

Traffic efforts have been coupled with a major expansion of the public transportation system, with its gleaming new subways and the world’s fastest train, a magnetic levitation vehicle that zips to the airport in under 10 minutes.

The steep growth in automobile traffic, however, seems to mock the city’s efforts.

“The estimates we made 20 years ago have been proven wrong,” said Li Junhao, chief engineer of the city’s Urban Planning Administration Bureau. “The development of Shanghai has been beyond our imagination.”

Meanwhile, the city is expanding its subway grid well beyond the 500 kilometers first planned. Even so, the su b- way system, gleaming and clean though it is, is one area where traffic has failed to meet projections, with less than half the expected ridership on some lines. The reason, experts say, is that there are not enough trains, resulting in overcrowding, which further encourages people to ride in cars. Shanghai’s failure to master the challenge of the automobile reflects a mixture of forces, both economic and cultural. Foremost is the city’s economic performance, which has been fast even by Chinese standards and has outstripped even the most optimistic projections. Add to this a flourishing consumer culture that equates car ownership with personal freedom, prestige and success.

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