PAUL SOLMAN: But in this crisis, Conn-Selmer was making more horns than the market would bear. So it tried a new approach, what it calls pain-sharing. Instead of cuts in hourly pay or massive layoffs, CEO John Stoner suggested cutting the work week.
JOHN STONER, CEO, Conn-Selmer: We felt pretty comfortable that, with everything else going on in the Elkhart community, knowing people with neighbors who’re losing jobs, that they would say, “I’d rather have a job even four days a week than not having a job.”
PAUL SOLMAN: With layoffs and a wage freeze for higher-paid salaried workers, some 25 jobs have been saved in a factory of 125 line workers, one of whom is Ryan Porzelius, fiddling here with a flugelhorn.
RYAN PORZELIUS: This way more people get to work. You know, I’m not a selfish guy. I don’t mind giving up a little for the greater good of the whole.