Reading Comprehension Questions Last spring, employees of the Hartville Corporation organized a weeklong strike to protest poor working conditions and unreasonable company policies. The strike resulted in huge financial losses for the company and the threat of a national boycott on Hartville products. The situation resulted in the formation of an employee task force, supported by Hartville management, to review circumstances that led to the strike. The task-force findings follow: N Hartville’s overtime pay schedule is well below the national level, and overtime is mandatory at least once a week. N Employees working in the manufacturing department have an alarmingly high rate of repetitive stress injury. The equipment they are working with is extremely old and dangerous and does not meet current health and safety standards. The task force recommended that equipment be evaluated and brought up-to- date immediately. N Sick and personal day policies are unclear. Employees report conflicting and/or confusing policies relating to sick and personal days, which have resulted in numerous misunderstandings about procedures and allowances as well as unfair disciplinary action. N In the past four years, five pregnant women with clean work records were terminated soon after their pregnancies were public. In all five cases, the grounds for firing were not specifically cited, although one of the employees was told by her immediate supervisor that new mothers make very unreliable employees. N Hartville’s upper management is largely unaware of the dissatisfaction of employees. There is evidence that middle management withholds vital information leading to upper management’s underestimation of the severity of employee discontent 4 501 Sentence Completion Questions 6801_501_ReadingCompQuest_4E[fin].indd 94 3/18/10 1:34:53 PM
9 5 501 Reading Comprehension Questions 228. Which of the following is the main organizational pattern used in the passage?