PROFIT-SHARING

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 44, 30 August 1928, Page 20

PROFIT-SHARING

EXPERIENCE AT' HOME MANY EXPERIMENTS FAIL (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 27th Juno. Tbc .Ministry of Labour has made its annual inquiry into the operation in 1027 o£ schemes of profit-sharing and labour copartnership. At the end of the year .4.40 undertakings of all kinds in Great Britain and Northern Island were known to have been practising profit-sharing, and as seven firms had each two separate schemes in operation the total number o£ schemes was 447. About 437,000 workpeople were employed in the businesses concerned, of whom 235,000 participated or were entitled to participate in the benefits of the schemes. Ju businesses other than co-operative societies 297 scheme -were in operation by 290 firms and three other schemes were suspended though not definitely termiuated. The total number of schemes known to have been started is 577. Of these 277 had been discontinued by the end of last year. It is shown that in agricultural industries there were five schemes; in glass, chemical, soap, oil, paint, etc., 15; engineering, shipbuilding, and other metal, 44; textile, 29; food and drink (manufacture), 33; paper, printing, bookbinding, publishing, etc., 23; gas, water, and. electricity supply, 03; insurance, banking, and other financial businesses, 9; merchants, warehousemen, and retail traders, 45; other businesses, 41. Twenty-eight of these schemes have been in operation for 28 years or longer. Thirty--1 eight were started between 1001 and 1010; 5S between 1911 and 19.18, 83 in 1910 and 1920, and 00 between 1921 and 1927. The Ministry's comment is that "profit-sharing [ has been tried in a wide variety of industries; in nearly every industry, however, the number of. schemes known1 to have been started is very small in comparison ] with the total number of firms .engaged in the industry; and in all industries taken together nearly one-half of the schemes started have come to an end. On the other hand, in the gas industry a large proportion of the principal company-own-ed undertakings have introduced schemes; comparatively few of these schemes have I been abandoned, and a number have been in operation for twenty years or longer." Of the 297 schemes the number ranking as co-partnership schemes is 125. Of the 277 defunct schemes 45 embodied the principle of co-partnership—that is to say, they encouraged workpeople to aeauire shares or other capital in the undertakings and thereby to obtain some share in the control of the business. The reasons assigned for the discontinuance of schemes are interesting. Seventyseven lapsed because of the apathy ot employees and dissatisfaction of employers with results: 16 because of the dissatisfaction of employees; 4S because of diminution o£ profits and losses ov want of success; 42 because of the enterprise being abandoned, the death of the employer, the liquidation or dissolution of the business; 37 because of changes in or the transfer of the business; 2S because of the substitution of increased wages or shorter hours or other benefits; and 29 from other or indefinite causes. , „ .