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

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1016336950

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-27123

Document type:: Monograph

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

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Office

Year of publication:: 1912

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (160 Seiten)

Digitisation:: 2018

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: II. Profit sharing and co-partnership in private firms and companies

Collection:: Economics Books

GENJiUAL SUMMARY. 11 measure of control over tlie management of the undertakings by which they are employed. At the same time, the opinions of employers quoted or summarised in the following pages show that the methods of Profit-sharing and Co-partnership are in numerous instances considered hy practical men, who base their judgment upon actual experience, to produce excellent results in the direction both of developing a higher degree of efficiency on the part of the employees, and of bringing about more harmonious relations between employers and employed. In comparing the details set forth in the present Iteport with those stated in its predecessor, the fact that conies most pro minently to light is the marked increase in those forms of Profit- sharing in which the method adopted is either to invest the whole or part of the bonus in shares in the undertaking—shares which generally though not always confer voting rights—or in other ways to secure that the employees shall possess a direct financial stake in the capital of the business. The idea of making arrangements of this nature is not novel, but there has been a considerable development of such systems within the last few years; and it is to this form of Profit-sharing that public attention is at the present moment principally directed. A review of the facts shows that schemes involving investment by employees in the capital of their employers’ businesses have met with a large measure of success; but great caution is necessary in drawing inferences of a general character from these results. In the first place it is necessary to point out that in the great majority of cases the experiments are of such comparatively recent date tliatsit may be somewhat premature to found upon the results which appear to have been attained in these instances any very positive conclusions with regard to the general applica bility of the Co-partnership method. Secondly, the fact that a large number of these experiments have taken place in a single industry, and that this industry (gas making) is carried on under very special circumstances and enjoys exceptional advantages, must impose a certain degree of caution in drawing deductions as to the applicability of such systems to businesses of all kinds. Certainly, the Gras Com panies afford a field exceptionally favourable for the applica tion of co-partnership methods. The absence of bonus, caused by insufficiency of profits, which in ordinary business not seldom occurs, is practically unknown in Gas Companies. Their shares and stock are often classed as “ gilt-edged securities,” and the chance that employee-investors will lose their savings by the liquidation of the company is so small as to be almost negligible. 1 hirdly, there is the point that the issue of shares to employees means an addition to capital account, and this is not always possible or desirable. Writing to the editor of Labour Co partnership, tlie organ of the Labour Co-partnership Association, on November 1st, 190G, Mr. Alexander Horn (one of the Managing Directors of Messrs. Clarke, Nickolls & Coombs, Limited, who have in the last 22 years paid to their workpeople

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