3 . The personal grievance provisions of New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA) prevent an employer from firing an employee without good cause. Instead, dismissals must be justified. Employers must both show cause and act in a procedurally fair way.

Personal grievance procedures were designed to guard the jobs of ordinary workers from “unjustified dismissals”. The premise was that the common law of contract lacked sufficient protection for workers against arbitrary conduct by management. Long gone are the days when a boss could simply give an employee contractual notice.

But these provisions create difficulties for businesses when applied to highly paid managers and executives. As countless boards and business owners will attest, constraining firms from firing poorly performing, high-earning managers is a handbrake on boosting productivity and overall performance. The difference between C-grade and A-grade managers may very well be the difference between business success or failure. Between preserving the jobs of ordinary workers or losing them. Yet mediocrity is no longer enough to justify a dismissal.

Consequently and paradoxically laws introduced to protect the jobs of ordinary workers may be placing those jobs at risk.

If not placing jobs at risk, to the extent employment protection laws constrain business owners from dismissing under-performing managers, those laws act as a constraint on firm productivity and therefore on workers’ wages. Indeed, in “An International Perspective on New Zealand’s Productivity Paradox” (2014), the Productivity Commission singled out the low quality of managerial capabilities as a cause of the country’s poor productivity growth record.

Nor are highly paid managers themselves immune from the harm caused by the ERA’s unjustified dismissal procedures. Because employment protection laws make it costlier to fire an employee, employers are more cautious about hiring new staff. This makes it harder for the marginal manager to gain employment. And firms pay staff less because firms carry the burden of the employment arrangement going wrong.

Society also suffers from excessive employment protections. Stringent job dismissal regulations adversely affect productivity growth and hamper both prosperity and overall well-being.

Across the Tasman Sea, Australia deals with the unjustified dismissal paradox by excluding employees earning above a specified “high-income threshold” from the protection of its unfair dismissal laws. In New Zealand, a 2016 private members’ Bill tried to permit firms and high-income employees to contract out of the unjustified dismissal regime. However, the mechanisms proposed were unwieldy and the Bill was voted down following the change in government later that year.

5 . Women are still underrepresented in top academic positions. One of the possible explanations for this is the increasing importance of obtaining research funding. Women are often less successful in this than men. Psychology researchers Dr. Romy van der Lee and professor Naomi Ellemers investigated whether this difference also occurs at the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and examined potential explanations.

The researchers were assigned by NWO to carry out this study as part of the broader evaluation of NWO’s procedures and its gender diversity policy. The aim was to gain more insight into the causes of the differences in awarding rates for male and female applicants for research funding. The analysis addressed an important “talent programme” of NWO, the Veni grant. “Whoever receives this grant has a greater chance of obtaining an important appointment at a university, ” says Naomi Ellemers.

Van der Lee and Ellemers investigated all the applications submitted by male and female researchers over a period of three years: a total of 2823 applications. Under the direction of NWO these applications were assessed by scientific committees consisting of men and women. The results demonstrate that the awarding rates for female applicants (14.9%) are systematically lower than those for male applicants (17.7%). “If we compare the proportion of women among the applicants with the proportion of women among those awarded funding, we see a loss of 4%,” said Ellemers.

The study reveals that women are less positively evaluated for their qualities as researcher than men are, “Interestingly the research proposals of women and men are evaluated equally positively. In other words, the reviewers see no difference in the quality of the proposals that men and women submit,” says Romy van der Lee.

In search for a possible cause for the differences in awarding rates and evaluations, the researchers also investigated the language use in the instructions and forms used to assess the quality of applications. This clearly revealed the occurrence of gendered language. The words that are used to indicate quality are frequently words that were established in previous research as referring mainly to the male gender stereotype (such as challenging and excellent). Romy van der Lee explains: “As a result, it appears that men more easily satisfy the assessment criteria, because these better fit the characteristics stereoty-pically associated with men.”

In response to the results of this research, NWO will devote more attention to the gender awareness of reviewers in its methods and procedures. It will also be investigated which changes to the assessment procedures and criteria can most strongly contribute to more equal chances for men and women to obtain research funding. This will include an examination of the language used by NWO. NWO chair Jos Engelens said, “The research has yielded valuable results and insights. Based on the recommendations made by the researchers we will therefore focus in the coming period on the development of evidence-based measures to reduce the difference in awarding rates.”

6 . Deep in the British Library lie the priceless treasures for pop music lovers. Housed across the main building in St Pancras and the Library’s Boston Spa site are more than 350,000 CDs and 250,000LPs (密文唱片) ,as well as around a quarter of a million 78 RPM discs and countless cassette tapes.

Andy Linehan, the Library’s Curator (馆长) of Popular Music Collections, feels he and his team are not only preserving pop, but they’re also honoring history.“One of the British’s Library’s functions is to be the cultural memory of the nation. We do that with books, journals and newspapers and it’s absolutely right that we should also do it with music,“ he said.

The treasures in the British Library rely on donations from record labels, artists and members of the public. As Andy noted,“If you publish a book, newspaper or magazine in the UK, you’re legally obliged to send a copy to the British Library, but that law does not apply to sound recordings.”

Among the treasures are an early voice recording of Florence Nightingale and a cassette tape that was sold at gigs (现场演唱会) in the early1980s by a sixth-form band called On A Friday. There are also old blues, rare LPs from the 1950s and promotional copies of Beatles singles that only had a couple of hundred pressings.

When it comes to preservation, the team is tirelessly transferring music from media that’s vulnerable and digitising (数字化) it for generations to come.“If anyone can save anything from an old tape which is not in very good condition, it’s our engineers. Because they have equipment and know how to play back everything,“ Andy explained.

Private companies and specialists record labels are also trying their best to ensure music is safeguarded for generations to come. Iron Mountain Entertainment Service offers digital transfer and preservation services for music as well as other media. Cherry Red Records Chairman, Iain McNay, said,“It’s about looking after all that material and letting it see the light of day. We’re music fans who are also protectors.”

It is widely acknowledged that wealthy people generate more pollution or carbon emissions(排放) than the less fortunate.

The richest 10 percent of humanity was responsible    1    52 percent of global emissions between 1990 and 2015, according to a 2020 Oxfam report. 15 percent of global emissions    2    ( produce) by the richest 1 percent alone during that time. Global income data tracks closely with emissions data: The World Inequality Lab’s2022 report found that the    3    ( wealthy)10 percent earn 52 percent of all income,while the poorest half of all people earn just 8.5 percent. On    4    individual level, people with more wealth are more likely to own cars, travel by airplane and own big homes    5    consume lots of energy.

Wealthy people are also more likely to invest in the stock market. By giving a company money,investors permit the company’s business practices,    6    ( expect)a positive return. So profitable companies tend to avoid    7    ( risk) like reorganizing their supply chain    8    ( be) more environmentally friendly.

Still, the blame for greenhouse gas emissions    9    ( fall) on companies and governments. While many companies have taken modest steps to reduce pollution, emissions are still increasing    10    will possibly stay that way until the governments of major polluters force companies to gradually switch from fossil fuels.

Traffic deaths     1     (increase) in the past several years. U.S. traffic death toll reached a 16-year high in 2021, with nearly 43,000 deaths.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that 9,560 people died in motor vehicle     2     (crash) between January and March, up 7% from the same period the year before. That would make it the deadliest first three months of the year since 2002.

The auto-safety regulator said the numbers     3     (release) on Wednesday are not accurate enough and remain to be revised in coming months. The report doesn’t include information on     4     the crashes happened, but Dr. Cliff said one third of traffic deaths are     5     (typical) caused by drivers influenced by alcohol or other substances.

A number of issues are causing     6     rise in traffic deaths, Mr. Adkins said, including careless driving and fewer police officers on the road.     7     (see) a police car gets drivers to slow down, he said. He also said roads aren’t designed to make it safe for bicyclists     8     (share) the road with cars.

The regulator said the state with the biggest increase of deaths was Delaware,     9     more than doubled its traffic deaths to 50 in the first quarter, compared with 19 in the same period the year before. They fell the most in Rhode Island, dropping by 50%     10     an estimated seven deaths.