What would you do if you were Blackenship?

Joe Blackenship was trying to figure out what to do about a problem salary situation that he had in his plant. Blackenship recently took over as president of Acme Manufacturing. The founder, Bill George, had been president for 35 years. The company is familyowned and located in a small eastern Manitoba town.
It has approximately 250 employees and is the largest employer in the community. Blackenship is a member of the family that owns Acme, but he had never worked for the company prior to becoming president.
He has an MBA and a law degree, plus 15 years of management experience with a large manufacturing organization where he \Vas senior vice-president of human resources when he made his move to Acme.