EMPLOYEES' INTEREST

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 5, 29 October 1924, Page 5

EMPLOYEES' INTEREST

PRINCIPLE OF PROFIT-SHARING.

>EW ZEALAND LEGISLATION.

(Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington. October 28

In the Legislative Council to-day Sir Francis Bell gave an interesting explanation of the Companies Empowering Bill.'. He said it was a measure to enable companies, if they think fit, by amendment of their .articles of association, to provide-for profit sharing with their employees. He there-was not a similar Bill in operation in any part of the Empire, but a similar, though not an identical Bill, promoted by Lord Robert Cecil, had been before the-Im-perial Parliament, this;, year. j, A -difficulty in legislation ftrosa from the not unnatural jealousy of united Labor as .regarded proposals which might have the effect of iiiucing workmen,.:t&.-labor c-either beyond the hours or at a less Tate of pay than that prescrbed by the award. He haa believe that > the N*ew Zealand Labor Party was.content that this experiment should be tried, provided a provision (clause 4) was inserted requiring that no scheme of profit sharing should foe conducted by a company except with, the precedent approyal of the Arbitration Court, and -.further, that the subsequent working of such scheme, if approved, should be subject to review at the Instance of either a company or an employer before the Arbitration Court and a termination of the arrangement, might be effected if the court considered that necessary. That;:iioweyer,.was a provision that stood by itself and need not be taken into consideration with the rest "of the Bill, which could stand apart from clause 4.

The company was authorised to issue labor shares numbered consecutively, but having no nominal value. The wage paid would still be tha Arbitration Court wages, but in addition the company might provide for a division of the share of profits appropriated to labor. If a worker, died or ceased to work for the company his labor shares ceased to..exist, but he or his executors received from the company the value of his shares. The scheme was not'compulsory, but the empowering restrictions imposed were imposed entirely iii the interests of the employees.'

: The result Would be to give an employee a interest in the profit he had earned. There.seemed to be reason ito believe that such a scheme would have a hand in dissipating tlie apparent separation of th'e interests of capital and employees. It was a method, perhaps tlje, only method, by which capital and-Jabo! 4 could be brought together and united in a'single effort to show'a-due profit to capital and a profit as''well as a wage'to employees. ■'■••■■• The Bill was passea by the Council. V '='•., ;J