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bring down （コストを）抑える、抑制する

GM has been negotiating with its main union for some time to bring down the costs of health-care provision to blue-collar workers.

attrition rate
摩耗率、損耗率、減少率、離職率

natural wastage　人的資源の自然減（＝attrition)

The unions had acquiesced to the cuts because roughly that number of employees would have left GM by 2008 through natural wastage.

ニュースを受けて急騰した

GM’s share price surged on the news.

plant closures 工場の閉鎖

Bill Ford, said an anxiously-awaited restructuring plan would be announced in January that would include “significant” plant closures in North America.

touchy 扱いにくい、厄介な、怒りっぽい、短気な

Universal suffrage, always a touchy subject in Hong Kong.

preserve 領分

Higher education in America is no longer the preserve of a privileged elite, with more than seven million undergraduates now enrolled in the roughly 2,600 colleges and universities that grant bachelor or higher degrees.