[aaronblohowiak]

"when the benefit reductions are in lieu of lay-offs, morale shouldn't be affected" -- in isolation, i agree. I think good will is easily lost and hard to re-earn, and spending a ton of cache while asking people to cut back is pretty harsh in my book.

"if the companies don't readjust later" .. i don't think people forget so soon. Also, the most effective people still have options in the downturn and are the ones you really can't afford to lose.

Mergers are really hard to get right, and you need buy-in from on high all the way down through the effected organization.

The bottom line is that you need to account for the ill will internally when you are considering making a decision like this. It may very well be the optimal choice for increasing short-term shareholder value, which is a publicly traded company's number 1 priority.

Now, if Adobe also announced that they'd pay doubletime for vacation for employees that took the unpaid time off and stuck it out, that'd be a Good Thing.