Full text: Report on profit-sharing and labour co-partnership in the United Kingdom

36 
II.—PRIVATE FIRMS AND COMPANIES. 
certificates for eight years; and of the total number of certificates 
issued, 303 were retrospective for eight years or over, 42 for seven 
years, 81 for six, 123 for five, 159 for four, 131 for three, 99 for 
two, and 103 for one year.* 
In 1910 the total amount of Certificates (of both kinds) was 
raised to £214,982, in 1911 to £298,731. 
It may he mentioned that the dividends on the Partnership 
Certificates are credited to the persons entitled to receive them 
in a Savings Bank account, opened for the purpose in the Com 
pany’s books in 1909. 
The total number of persons employed by Lever Brothers, 
Limited, and by its Associated Companies in 1911 in the United 
Kingdom was over 9,000. There were 2,500 employed outside 
the United Kingdom. Of these, at the end of 1911, .1,749 (1,448 
in the United Kingdom, 301 outside it) were the holders of 
Partnership or Preferential Certificates under the Scheme above 
described. 
In reply to the Department’s question as to the results obtained 
by these arrangements, the Company writes : — 
“ It is too early yet, in the opinion of the Chairman of the 
Company, to speak authoritatively with reference to the Co 
partnership Scheme. But his experience is that with the 
majority the Scheme does increase their sense of responsi 
bility and loyalty to the firm, perseverance and assiduity in 
discharge of duties. He would not abandon it, nor has he 
any desire to go back to the days before the Scheme. If it 
were not in operation, he would desire to provide such a 
Scheme, and he does not think his experience of it has dis 
closed any inherent defects or any possibility as far as this 
business is concerned of very materially improving upon it.” 
Bonus, part Cash, part Provident Fund.* 
An example of the type of Profit-sharing in which part of the 
fund available for the payment of bonus is paid in cash and the 
remainder is credited to a Provident Fund for the benefit of the 
employees may be found in the scheme of a large London firm 
of confectionery manufacturers, Messrs. Clarke, Kiel,oils, and 
Coombs, Limited, which came into force on January 1, 1890. 
The arrangement in this case is that “ after paying all 
salaries, liabilities on agreements, making allowances for bad 
debts, and the usual provision for depreciation and other reserves, 
paying interest on debentures, dividend on preference shares, and 
a dividend at the rate of 6 per cent.t on the ordinary capital of 
* The Eules of a profit-sharing scheme with bonus partly paid in cash partly 
credited to Provident Fund will be found in Appendix G-., pp. 130-133. 
f The company states that it had paid 10 per cent, on its ordinary shares for 
two years prior to the introduction of the profit-sharing scheme, “ but it was 
thought wiser to start dividing profits with the workpeople after only 6 per cent, 
had been paid to the ordinary shareholders. The directors suggested this as 
having every confidence in the scheme themselves, they thought, if the workpeople 
saw something tangible within their grasp, they would be more likely to give 
it a fair trial.”
	        
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