Aneurin Williams

“ The Mutual Aid Society is a registered body, and is a limited partner in the firm, the liability of the two managing partners being unlimited and the control resting entirely in their hands. The benefits of the Mutual Aid Society, and of the profit-sharing generally, are enjoyed in the main by all the employees of the business, but certain advantages are confined to a limited number of permanent employees. ”

“ Profit-sharing, in the loose sense, must be of untold antiquity; the first great example of profit-sharing in the strict sense is that of the Parisian house-painter, Edme-Jean Leclaire, “The Father of Profit-Sharing.” In 1842 he was employing 300 men on day wages. By greater zeal and intelligence and less waste, not necessarily by harder work, he reckoned they could save £3000 a year ”

“ The present extent of profit-sharing, though in itself considerable, is but small in comparison with the vast extent of the world’s commerce and industry, and except in one of its developments, co-partnership, it can hardly be said to be making progress. In 1906 there were in the United Kingdom and its colonies 65 ordinary firms practising profit-sharing in its strictest sense, and 17 others known to have adopted and not known to have discontinued it, making 82 in all as against 92 in 1901, and 101 in 1894. ”

“ Though many of the above methods of remunerating, or benefiting, the employed are from time to time included under profit-sharing even by writers of repute, the strict sense of the term was defined by the international congress on profit-sharing in 1889 as “an agreement freely entered into by which the employed receives a share of profits determined in advance.” It does not follow that the agreement must be actually enforceable at law; some employers to protect themselves from litigation stipulate that it shall not be. ”

“ This system of profit-sharing plus shareholding is now known as co-partnership (see Co-operation) , and is making undoubted progress. It is exemplified in nearly all profit-sharing cooperative societies, and in a growing number of businesses of non-co-operative origin which accumulate part or the whole of labour’s profit in shares. In 1908, in the Familistère of Guise the whole capital of £200,000 belonged to the workers and a few retired workers, in Leclaire’s old business the Mutual Aid Fund owned half, in the Laroche-Joubert paper-works the employees owned more than two-thirds. ”

“ In other ways the experiment was very successful, and £40,000 was divided as bonus on wages in nine years, but the main object was not attained; and when the price of coal fell heavily after the inflation of 1873 Briggs’s men joined the strike to resist a reduction of wages, and the experiment came to an end. ”