Profit Sharing

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ...In Massachusetts. So far as the dividend on shares of capital stock held by workmen is the reward of investment it is not an example of profit sharing. Profit sharing is a reward of labor, as such, by participation in the profits of the industrial enterprise in which it is employed. Any confusion of thought on this point would lead to erroneous conclusions. But when a majority of the workmen in any industrial enterprise are owners of its capital stock and their ownership extends to a majority of the shares, the profits of the business will include an increment which is the reward of labor. Diligence, caretaking. and fidelity are promoted by stock-ownership to a degree that is perceptible in the balance sheet. If the business is making money the dividend will be the larger by reason of this increased efficiency of labor, and in the unsuccessful years the losses will be smaller. When a dividend is paid it is a real, though concealed, case of profit sharing. Participation by labor, through stock-owning, in the profits of the business in which it is engaged is especially provided for and encouraged in Massachusetts in manufacturing corporations organized as co-operative associations. The term co-operation as here applied requires explanation. Broadly speaking, all industry carried on by the conjoint efforts of capital, labor, and business talent is co-operation. In a more special sense a hearty effort of all the parties--workers and capitalists--to make the enterprise a success, in the understanding that the greater the success the greater will be the reward of each individual, in proportion to the services he renders, is co-operation. It is in this sense that the word is used by partnerships and corporations like the Maison Leclaire and the Peace Dale company, ..