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:: IV. Conversion of ordinary businesses into co-operative societies

Collection:: Economics Books

90 IV.—CONVERSION OF ORDINARY BUSINESSES INTO CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES. out of the Assurance and Pension Fund, a sum of £5, and if not less than ten years, £10. It would appear that the position occupied hy the workpeople of Wm. Thomson & Sons, Limited, is of such a nature that they identify themselves to a remarkable extent with the interests of the business. The very considerable sums contributed out of their wages by the workpeople in order that the shareholders should not receive less than their usual return of 5 per cent, have already been mentioned. As further exemplifying the feelings entertained by the workpeople it may be observed that, as was reported in 1890, one of the workmen having invented a great improvement in weaving, instead of patenting it for his. own benefit, presented his invention to the Society. From the point of view of the management, the fact that the workpeople are directly interested in the business is found to result in their exhibiting increased application and avoiding waste; it also makes the management much less costly, because, as Mr. Thomson has said, “ each man and woman becomes his or her own manager.” At the same time the services rendered by Mr. Thomson as head of the business are so highly appreciated that his original salary of £500 a year was, within a few years after the formation of the Society, increased by the Committee to a very considerable extent. In 1891 Mr. Thomson informed the annual meeting that he was prepared to have the rule requiring a five-sixths majority before he could be removed from the management modified so that a smaller proportion would be required in order to depose him; but “ it was unanimously proposed not to alter the system, because, as it was then, they were perfectly satisfied with it.” Mr. Thomson also offered to give up the autocratic authority reserved to him as manager by the rules; but, although this offer was repeated in 1892 and again in 1893, on no occasion was the desire expressed that his position should be altered. BROWNFIELD’S GUILD POTTERY SOCIETY, LTD. The second of the three cases in which an ordinary business has been turned into a Co-operative Society is that of Brownfield’s Guild Pottery Society, Limited. Mr. Arthur Brownfield, the owner of the old-established pottery works of Messrs. William Brownfield and Sons, at Cobridge, in Staffordshire, determined, in consequence of the lock-out which took place in the pottery in dustry in 1891, but in which his firm was in no way concerned, to place this undertaking upon a new footing by transferring it to a Co-operative Society, which was registered under the Indus trial and Provident Societies Act in October, 1892, and commenced to manufacture in January, 1893. The following account of the start of the Society, reprinted from the Report on Profit-sharing published by the Board of Trade in 1894 (C.—7458), shows the history of this experiment up to that date : — The share in the assets of the late firm, which belonged to Mr. Arthur Brownfield, the founder of the society, is represented by £6,000 deferred stock carrying interest at 5 per cent., which “ shall not confer a right to demand payment of the principal from the society so long as any claim

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