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  3. In 1979 the United Auto Workers(UAW)had more than 1.5m members, and nine of the country’s ten bestselling cars were American bra

In 1979 the United Auto Workers(UAW)had more than 1.5m members, and nine of the country’s ten bestselling cars were American bra

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问题     In 1979 the United Auto Workers(UAW)had more than 1.5m members, and nine of the country’s ten bestselling cars were American brands. The Toyota Corolla came eighth; the first time a foreign-branded car had cracked the top ten. Today the UAW’s membership is around 400,000, and not all of those are car workers: over the years the union has sought recruits on farms, in casinos and at universities. And of the top ten bestselling cars in America last year, seven were foreign-badged.
    Americans are not only buying foreign-badged cars, they are also making them: seven of America’s 15 most productive assembly plants last year were foreign-owned. Although the UAW has had some success at organizing foreign-owned partsmakers, it has so far failed to organize workers at the carmakers themselves. Its attempts in recent years to get into Nissan’s plants in Tennessee and Mississippi have failed. Now it has set its sights on German carmakers: Mercedes and, especially, Volkswagen.
    At VW’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the UAW, with support from IG Metall, which represents workers in VW’s German plants, has been pushing for the creation of a works council. In German law, such factory-level bodies are distinct from labour unions: they cannot call for strikes, and their membership is limited to employees at the plant in question. Their relationships with management tend to be less adversarial than American unions’. But the UAW seems to see them as a foot in the door towards eventual union recognition.
    The status of works councils under American labour law—in particular, whether a company can have a works council without a union—is unclear. Managers are legally prohibited from "assisting" labour unions, and the National Labour Relations Board has tended to interpret that ban strictly. If VW workers do choose a works council, one way of satisfying the law might be to bring in an outside union to represent employees, thereby giving the UAW a way in.
    It is no coincidence that most of the foreign-owned plants have been built in "right to work" states in the South. Such states ban "closed shops" in which employees are forced to join a union at their workplace. This makes it harder for unions to gain influence, even if they have recruited some of the workforce at a plant. But the UAW’s boss, Bob King, has acknowledged that it must keep on trying to organize the foreign-owned assembly plants, otherwise it may not have a long-term future.
    When the foreign carmakers arrived, the UAW was strong enough to force them to pay the wages it had negotiated with the American car giants in Detroit. But as the number of jobs in the foreign-owned plants grew, and Detroit’s workforce shriveled, the union lost that price-setting power. Since the cost of living in the South is relatively cheap, the foreign carmakers could pay less than the American ones but still find plenty of willing recruits.
The word "shriveled"(Line 3, Para.6)most probably means
选项 A、shrank.
B、moved.
C、expanded.
D、transformed.
答案A
解析 语义理解题。根据题干提示定位到第六段第二句。该段第一句说外国汽车刚进入美国时，工会的力量十分强大，可以影响工人的工资水平，而第二句开头的but却说明，现在的情形与以前不同，也就是说工会力量在不断萎缩。由此可推测，shriveled一词在这里的意思是“萎缩，弱化”，选项中shrank的意思与之相符，因此选[A]。[B]“移动”、[C]“扩张”和[D]“变革”均不符合文意，故排除。
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