DuPont Co. hourly employees tell me the company's workers (other than those guaranteed increases under union contracts) were frozen out of bonuses and cost-of-living increases for 2015, as the company reported lower-than-expected profits and braced for new rounds of layoffs in advance of its planned merger with Dow Chemical Co. and reorganization into pesticides-and-seeds, commodity-materials and specialty companies.
"These were difficult but necessary decisions," spokesman Daniel Turner told me in an emailed statement confirming the move. "DuPont is a performance-based culture, and our merit pay and short-term incentive compensation impact reflects that." What about 2016? "Coming out of the fourth quarter, we are making strong progress on the priority areas we have identified to improve our performance," the statement concluded.
2015 was the second straight year wages are frozen at DuPont, the Wilmington-based News Journal reported last month. Bloomberg wrote about the 2014 wage freeze here.