2016届高考英语高分冲刺特训听力素材3（word版）12_高考复习指南

2016届高考英语高分冲刺特训听力素材3（word版）12

　　One year ago this month, a powerful earthquake in Mexico City killed more than nine thousand people. Tens of thousands of people lost their jobs because of the massive damage. Among those hardest hit by the quake were women garment workers, who worked in sweatshops concentrated in the heart of Mexico City. One year after the earthquake, Lucie Conger reports that some of the forty thousand seamstresses who lost their jobs are changing their attitudes about work.

　　On the fifth floor of a small office building in the heart of downtown, some thirty garment workers are back at work. Just as before the earthquake they're working on an assembly line. Each woman is specialized in one operation, like sewing cuffs or putting buttonholes on a fancy cocktail dress. But there the similarities with their past work end. The women here on Uruguay Street are running their own cooperative with machines they got from their former employer in a settlement when he closed his factory which was damaged by the earthquake. About fifteen groups of women have former cooperatives, setting up shop with equipment they received instead of an indemnification when factory owners shut down their former places of work. Running their own business has meant big changes for these women. All thirty-five women in this cooperative agree that they prefer working without a boss looking over their shoulder. For Juana Arias, who used to cut patterns for dresses, not having a boss has given her the chance to develop new skills.