Similarly each officer, except the president, and each employé was to receive a dividend on his wages equal in per cent, to the dividend declared on capital stock.[1]
SUMMARY.
A brief summary must here suffice. Of the fifty firms which have adopted the system, twelve continue it, five have abandoned it indefinitely, and thirty-three have abandoned it permanently. Those which continue the plan have an experience extending on an average, through seven years. The second class average but one year, and recognizing the insufficiency of such a trial have not decided it a failure. The third class vary, in length of trial, from a maximum of eight years to a minimum of six months; the majority having tried it for a peried of from two to three years. In comparison with European experience, one is struck with the brevity of the trial. As to a fundamental principle, the large majority are of the opinion that such a plan results in a financial loss to the employer, he being recouped if at all in non-computable ways. Those which continue the plan do so, not as a matter of philanthropy, but as a matter of justice if not of business. These are about equally divided in their opinion as to the direct financial benefit of the plan to the firm. While it is true with any such question, that one success will prove that it can be done with profit and any number of failures not prove the contrary; yet it is as a general type, not an individual variation, that such a system has social significance.
A further study will justify two general conclusions: First, that such a system will succeed only with a select few of employers, those with whom social motives have an extraordinary influence and with a grade of skilled or intelligent labor. Second, such a system is of some importance to society from a statical point of view, but little, if any at all, from that of social progress.
The University of Chicago.
- ↑ Credit is due to President J. M. Ashley for the adoption of this plan. He writes recently: "I am quite confident that the plan which the 'Ann Arbor' Company adopted, can be successfully and profitably used by all railroads and by all corporations or business firms which employ a large number of men, especially manufacturing or mercantile establishments, and in fact all employers of labor."
