Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
"—feel sure that a settlement can be effected out of court—" The case was thrown out on its ear. And still the machines sputtered. Back at the plant rumor had it that the machines were permanently gutted, and that the plant could never go back into production. Conflicting scuttlebutt suggested that persons high in uniondom had perpetrated the crisis deliberately, bullying Management into the strike for the sole purpose of cutting current dividends and selling stock to themselves cheaply. The rumors grew easier and easier to believe. The workers came stockholders. But to face facts, their salaries were not the paid by well-to-do managements, and very little was left but the semi-annual dividend checks. And now the dividends were tottering. Production lines slowed. There were daily brawls on the plant floor, in the lounge and locker rooms. Workers began joking about the trash cans He had wolfed down his morning Koffee-Kup with one eye on the clock and one eye on his growing sense of impending crisis. And now, to make things just a trifle worse, he was going to be late again. He struggled doggedly across the rumbling Exit strip toward They're tired of making trash cans. No challenge in it. Anyway, the stock room is full, and the freight yard is full, and the last run of orders we sent out came back because nobody the Robling Titanium Corporation. What could they do to him, really? He had rehearsed his making progress. Tell them Management is beginning to weaken from its original stand. Tell them we expect to have the strike broken in another few hours. Tell them anything." owned stock in the company, every member had the right to too strongly of the old system of corporate organization to suit the men. The solution had been simple, if a trifle ungainly. Everyone who owned stock in Robling Titanium was automatically could have been worse. They might have fired him like poor Cartwright last month. He'd just have at the cost of lowering dividends, of taking food from the offers. They were rejected with scorn. These thieves have one desire in mind, my friends, to starve you all, and to destroy your company and your jobs. To every appeal they heartlessly "What have you been doing lately? Sabotaging the production before the switchover, before that black day when the exchange of ten little shares of stock had thrown the Robling Titanium Corporation into the hands of strange and unnatural owners. production lines, works with Promotion and Sales, Look at them! Sales at rock bottom. Receipts impossible. Big orders canceled. The worst reports in seven years, and you say you know your job!" "I've been doing everything I could," Walter snapped. "Of course the reports are bad, they couldn't help but be. We haven't met a production schedule in over two years. No plant can keep up production the way the men are working." Torkleson's face darkened. He leaned forward slowly. "So "Nothing's wrong with the men—if they'd only work. But they come in when they please, and leave when they please, and spend half their time changing and the other half on Koffee-Kup. No company could survive this. But that's only half of it—" Walter searched through the reports frantically. seven years ago, you and your board have forced me to play the cheap products for the quick profit in order to give your men their dividends. Now the bottom's dropped out. We couldn't turn a quick profit on the big, important accounts, so we had to cancel them. If you had let me manage the company the way it should have been run—" Torkleson had been slowly turning purple. Now he slammed his fist down on the desk. "We should just turn the company of this corporation, just the way all the other unions did. leader in the movement. But I did it only for the men. The men want their dividends. They own the stock, stock is supposed to pay dividends." "But they're cutting their own throats," Walter wailed. "You can't build a company and make it grow the way I've been forced to run it." every six months to the men who own the stock, the men working on the production lines." that paper on the first of next month, you are out of a job, on grounds of incompetence. And I will personally see that and battled, and pleaded, and lost. He had watched the company deteriorate day by day. Now they blamed him, and threatened his job, and he was helpless to do anything about it. He stared at the machines, clicking busily against the wall. An idea began to form in his head. Helpless? It was a repugnant idea. But there was one thing they could do that even Torkleson and his fat-jowled crew would understand. They could go on strike. "It's ridiculous," the lawyer spluttered, staring at the circle striking against its own labor. It—it isn't done. Oh, there have been lockouts, but this isn't the same thing at all." Walter nodded. "Well, we couldn't very well lock the men out, they own the plant. We were thinking more of a lock- the machines figure production quotas, product off their production lines for the rest of the year, and The news hit the afternoon telecasts the following day. Headlines screamed: MANAGEMENT SABOTAGES ROBLING MACHINES OFFICE STRIKERS THREATEN LABOR ECONOMY ROBLING LOCK-IN CREATES PANDEMONIUM violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of American Steel, expressed "shock and regret" the Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be permanently barred from positions in American Industry." would undoubtedly be repercussions—many industries were having managerial troubles On the Robling production lines the workmen blinked at unions, finding themselves oppressed with the administration in corporate stock. It was no news to them that money could make money. And what stock more logical to buy than stock in their own companies? At first it had been a quiet movement. One by one the smaller firms had tottered, bled drier and drier by increasing production costs, increasing labor demands, and an ever-dwindling margin of profit. One by one they had seen their stocks tottering as they faced bankruptcy, only to be gobbled up by the one ready buyer with plenty of funds to buy with. At first, changes had been small and insignificant: boards of the men were paid higher wages and worked with hardly a fight, and as the unions began to feel their oats, gradual undercutting of the managerial salaries, the tightening up of inter-union collusion to establish the infamous White list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift from hourly wage to annual salary for the factory workers, and the change to the malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more and higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily toward the inevitable crisis. machines apart on the floor." "I know that, stupid," Torkleson roared. "I ordered them there. Did they get the machines total resources of the giant plant behind the effort, production requisitions tied up in the reverberating machines. But the machines continued to buzz and sputter. The workers grew restive. From the first day, Towne and Hendricks and all the others had been picketing the plant, machinery began tying itself in knots, and the strikers still struck. By the fifth day there was a more serious note. "You're going to have to appear, Walter. We can't dodge Torkleson's getting desperate. The workers are putting pressure on him." charges were read: "—breach of contract, malicious mischief, sabotage of the company's machines, conspiring to destroy the livelihood of ten thousand workers. Your Honor, we are preparing briefs to prove further that these men have formed a

<question>:
Why did the production line workers care about the profits of the company?

<options>:
A They would be fired if they did not meet a certain quota
B They received stock options and wanted higher dividends
C They were passionate about the products that they make
D The company was on the verge of shutting down

<answer>:

B