of wages to total wages of all employes. But one dividend was paid, of 2½ per cent, on wages in 1892.
CASES IN WHICH PROFIT SHARING HAS DEEN ABANDONED.
The experience of thirteen of the following thirty-two failures has been given either in the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor or in Mr. Oilman's work on Profit Sharing: third, fourth, fifth and sixth of these cases are given in the former; the first, second, eighth, ninth, eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth, and the twentieth are given in the latter work. A very brief summary of their experience will here suffice.
1. The Bay State Shoe and Leather Company, of Worcester, Mass., adopted profit sharing in 1867 and paid six dividends in the following seven years. They divided 25 per cent, of the net profits, which made a bonus on wages of from 2 to 5 per cent. The company decided that the plan conferred no benefits upon themselves, there being labor troubles and no improvement in the character of service, and very little to the employés and accordingly abandoned it.
2. A New England Factory, of Boston, Mass., is recorded by Mr. Oilman as having adopted the plan in 1868. Four dividends were declared amounting to from 2 to 5 per cent, on wages. The results were satisfactory as far as they concerned the laborers, but entailed a sacrifice upon the part of firm, which in addition to the loss from the Boston fire, was greater than the firm was justified in continuing.
3. A. S. Cameron & Co., of Jersey City, N. J., divided 10 per cent, of net profits among their employés from 1869 to 1877. This amounted 4½ percent, on wages. The plan was a success in every respect, but was discontinued upon the death of the head of the firm.
4. Brewster & Company, of New York City, divided 10 per cent, of gross profits, before salaries of managers were withdrawn, for two years beginning with 1870. The continuance of the plan was conditioned upon the employés' refraining from labor disturbances; this condition being broken, the plan was abandoned
5. Lister Brothers, of Newark, N. J., manufacturers of fertilizers, divided in 1882 all net profits above 10 per cent, on invested capital among their employés, divided into four grades. The results being
