﻿WHAT IS MEANT BY LABOUR CO-PARTNERSHIP.

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receive, in partial remuneration of tlieir labour, and in addition
to their wages, a share, fixed beforehand, in the profits realised by
the undertaking to which the profit-sharing scheme relates.

What is meant by “ Labour Co-partnership.”

The sense in which the term “Labour Oo-partnersliip" is
employed may be explained by quoting the words recently used
by some distinguished advocates of the system. In a Memoran-
dum on “ Co-partnership and Labour Unrest,” issued in October,
1911,* it is stated that: —

“ The Co-partnership of Labour with Capital is capable of many
modifications according to the needs of varying industries, and in
some one of them it is applicable to almost every industry where
labour is employed. In its simplest form, taking the case of a man
employed by a great Limited Liability Company, it involves: —

1.	That the worker should receive, in addition to the standard

wages of the trade, some share in the final profit of the
business, or the economy of production.

2.	That the worker should accumulate his share of profit, or

part thereof, in the capital of the business employing
him, thus gaining the ordinary rights and responsi-
bilities of a shareholder.”

Profit-sharing and Labour Co-partnership exist in two fairly
distinct forms, these methods being applied, on the one hand, in
Co-operative Societies (associations mainly or entirely composed of
and managed by workmen, or in the case of Agricultural
Societies, by small farmers), and, on the other hand, in ordinary
non-co-operative businesses. It will be convenient to treat of
these two different kinds of industrial organisations in separate
parts of this Report. Profit-sharing in private firms and com-
panies is dealt with first, as this is probably the aspect which has
received most general attention.

c This Memorandum was signed by Lord Courtney of Penwith, the Right
Hon. Thomas Burt, M.P., the Right Hon. C. Fenwick, M.P., the late
J. M. Ludlow, C.B., Sir W. H. Lever, Bart., Sir B. C. Browne, Dr. Alfred
Marshall,-and Messrs. W. IT. Hadow, T. C. Taylor, M.P., George Thomson,
Corbet Woodall, Chas. Carpenter, and E. O. Greening ; also, on behalf of the
Executive of the Labour Co-partnership Association, by Mr. Amos Mann, its
President, Mr. Aneurin Williams, then Hon. Treasurer, and Mr. Henry Vivian,
then Hon. Secretary of the Association.