The Sun TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1920. PROFIT-SHARING EXTRAORDINARY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2143, 28 December 1920, Page 18 (Supplement)

The Sun TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1920. PROFIT-SHARING EXTRAORDINARY.

Here is a man—a large employer—who must be very much after the most ardent Radical's own Heart. Here is a payer of wages who must be nearly unique. His name is Mr Austin Hopkinson. Mr Hopkinson is a member of the House of Commons and the proprietor of important works devoted to the manufacture of mining machinery. Obviously, this gentleman is none of your conservative, prejudice-ridden employer. For a number of years he has tried the experiment at his machine shops of working shorter hours than are customary in the trade and paying higher wages than the district rate. His latest innovation is to limit his personal income to an amount, in his case, less than he actually received before the War, and undoubtedly very much s less, he says, than what he might now obtain if he wished. This sort of thing sounds incredible, but is strictly true. Mr Hopkinson „told the Commons recently that "in no circumstances" should the "appalling fate" of becoming a millionaire ever, overtake him. More and more extraordinary! And it is to prevent being the hapless victim of that misfortune that Mr Hopkinson introduced six months ago his .novel scheme of profit-sharing. Under that scheme, it is arranged that, after a certain point has been reached, increased profits are not to add to his own income. He told the men: "The arrangement increases your share, as compared with mine, in a continually greater ratio up t« a point when the whole of the increased profits go to you." To illustrate: If the profit is at the rate of £IOOO a year, Mr Hopkinson takes njne-tenths and his men one-tenth. On the second £IOOO he takes eighttenths and his men two-tenths; on the third £IOOO, seven-tenths and his men three-tenths, and so on. Profits are defined as the net surplus after paying all charges, commissions, rates, taxes, depreciation, and 5 per cent, on capital. The hours of work are 44 a week, and overtime' is avoided, except in cases of emergency., Participation in any industrial dispute, it was explained by Mr Hopkinson to a newspaper representative, directed towards the improvement of wages or working conditions is not to prejudice the men in any way, provided such dispute is authorised by the recognised officials. But if there is a stoppage of work on political grounds, or in opposition to the orders of the union authorities, Mr Hopkinson reserves the right to cancel the whole scheme. He reserves the absolute right, also, to engage or dismiss men. In further explanation of his scheme, Mr Hopkinson said that it differed; from the ordinary profit-sharing! device in that it aimed at decreasing! his own income, and was not incentive to men who were already doing as much as was good for them to do any more. Yet—why introduce another, experiment when production was as high as it could be, and working conditions were satis-] factory? And this original-minded employer answers: "The scheme is rather the result of feeling that my men are such good fellows that I am bound to do what is best for them, and also to try and get aw&y from the theory that the employer is no better than his men. The only way in industry by which an employer can justify his position as a leader is by not imitating his men in getting as much as he can." That is, he ' must guard against being greedy or

an exploiter. In laying down the principle that he does not want more than a certain amount of money for his own use and a certain amount to give away, Mr Hopkinson observes that this is no matter for dictation to other people. He agrees that on such questions every man must judge for himself." During the War, the Hopkinson hands built up an output which the proprietor described as "perfectly wonderful," and that without any Share in the profits\ It is a fair assumption that these same men will think twice before sacrificing their present snug jobs at the behest of any union official. Mr Hopkinson has dealt goslow and direct-action a deadly blow, and made his individual position in the industrial world practically impregnable.