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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

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

Collection:: Economics Books

DETAILED ACCOUNT OF VARIOUS SCHEMES. 29 (originally one-fifth), and those employed in the works, ware houses, &c., five-sixths (originally four-fifths). The participants are divided into classes according to the. importance of the work done hy each,* there being four classes, receiving respectively .1 share each, l\, and 3 (originally 1, 2, 3, and 4). All adult employees in the service of the company during the last eighteen months are entitled to participate in the Bonus Bund (distributed in cash), unless they have been absent, during the preceding twelve months, more than 60 early morning quarters or 240 hours in the aggregate,f except with the sanction in writing of a Managing Director: in case of absence due. to sickness or other unavoidable cause, however, the Managing Directors may grant an approximately proportionate amount of any gratuity to which the employee would otherwise have been entitled. + The number of persons employed by this firm in 1911 varied between 803 and 840, of whom some 600 were, on December 31, 1911, entitled to participate in profits. The ratio which the bonus has borne to the wages of participants, taking an average of the bonuses distributed in the years 1886-1911 inclusive, has been 3‘07 per cent. Although the scheme makes no provision for the investment of the bonus, a certain number of employees (64) have acquired ordinary shares of the company to the total (nominal) amount of £6,130, and these employee-shareholders possess be tween them T3 per cent, of the total votes that might be given at a shareholders’ meeting. With respect to the results obtained hy the adoption of their profit-sharing scheme, the company states that: “ We think that the scheme induces the men to take an increased interest; in their work, and that it does tend to promote a good feeling between employers and employed.” A system of participation in profits, which embraces not alone the ordinary employees of the business, but also the directors and other principal officials, and which presents several other features not be found in other profit-sharing schemes, is in force with the firm of Lever Brothers, Limited, soap manufacturers, of Port Sunlight, and with certain associated companies, under a scheme introduced in May, 1909, and altered and extended in June, 1910. § The whole of the ordinary shares in Lever Brothers, Limited, are held by Sir W. H. Lever and his son, and the scheme was introduced on the initiative of Sir W. H. Lever. The scheme is based upon the creation of a “ Co-partnership trust,” and upon the issue of certificates of two kinds, called respectively “ partner ship ” and “ preferential ” certificates. By the Articles of Association of the company provision is made whereby any moneys proposed to be distributed by way of divi dend after the payment of preference and ordinary dividends * * * § * Thus a mechanic takes “ 1J gratuities,” while a labourer takes “ 1 gratuity.” f Originally the disqualifying period of absence was 50 working days'in 2 years ; then (after Nov., 1890) 24 working days in 12 months ; altered as in the text in 1898. + This proviso was added in 1904. § The scheme is described as at present in operation (as modified in 1910).

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