Unpaid leave trend spreads to DuPont

DuPont Co. is the latest company to give workers unpaid furloughs in an effort to save money, according to this story on delawareonline.com from Wilmington, Del.'s, The News Journal. There are a couple of differences in DuPont's plan -- one, they don't call it a furlough, and two, it is voluntary. According to the story, 75 senior executives have agreed to take three weeks off without pay, and thousands of others in the company are being asked to take the equivalent of two weeks. "It's something to be said about DuPont employees that when there are challenging times, our people rally around and step up to the challenges. We have every reason to believe we'll continue that tradition in 2009," spokesman Anthony Farina told the newspaper. DuPont has already cut 2,500 full-time jobs and eliminated 4,000 contract workers. If your employer asked you to voluntarily take two weeks off without pay, would you do it? How many of your co-workers would take it? That would be a tough decision. Remember back in January, when BusinessWeek touted DuPont for its decisive response to the economic downturn?