Exercise 2. Complete the text with missing words

Age discrimination has long been a ______ of corporate life in the U.S. Wall Street's emphasis on "youthful,

dynamic management" and the actuarial _________ of an older staff have shortened many an executive's

career. For some companies, ________ or forcing early _________ on highly paid older executives has two

perceived __________: It cuts salary ________ and pension ________ and, at the same time, makes

_______ at the top for young achievers. It is a particularly tempting _________ in a _________ period like

the present, when corporations seek to ________ expenses.

But these days it is also a potentially _________ option. Executives have begun to fight back by _________

the protections of the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).

Many companies have settled out of ________. Standard Oil Co. of California paid $2 million to 264

employees in a 1974 age ________ case. Pan American World Airways Inc. _________ $900,000 on some

600 older management employees in 1978. Hartford Fire Insurance Co. paid $240,000 last year to 72

_______ or _________ employees allegedly fired, _______, or denied promotions in ________ of the ADEA.

And Connecticut General Insurance Corp. of Bloomfield, Conn., has quietly settled a number of individual

age bias __________, with others ___________.

In all such cases the ________ are heavily in favor of the employee, particularly since amendments to the

ADEA in 1978 assured the availability of _________ trials. "When you put a large corporation against an

employee in front of a jury on an issue like this, there is rarely any question as to the __________."

In Connecticut, two former officers of Bloomfield-based Ka-man Corp. have sued to _________ income and

benefits lost when they were fired in 1978. The men claim that there is a decade-long ________ of

discrimination at Kaman.

EEOC aims to demonstrate to employers their intention to actively __________ the law.

"We're suggesting to corporations that they must use a _______-process approach," says H. Reeve Darling,

president of Los Angeles Consulting Group. "They've got to be able to demonstrate measurable __________

in _________, and employees must be reviewed at several levels."

Likewise, the former employees' attorneys are also providing advice for endangered executives. "They

should be ___________ of the law and the signs," says one. "A sophisticated employer who wants to get

_____ of an older, too-highly paid executive nowadays is going to do it in a _________ way over a period of

time by ________ up a ________ on little ways he screwed up. If the executive senses he is getting out of

favor, he should start building his own dossier, keep notes and copies of ____________, and, most of all, do

a good job."

Because the ADEA has a six-month _________ for _________ a claim of age discrimination employees who

feel that age was the _________ reason for their __________ should move fast, advises Donnelly.

The organizations must show "just cause" before __________ an employee of those benefits. This marks a

change in the traditional doctrine that nonunion white-collar workers can be fired at _________. "The

company is selling itself, too, when it hires people," Donnelly says. "What those rulings say is that a

company must be _________ by the promises it makes."