Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/61

 PROFIT-SHARING AT IVORYDALE 47

be said by one of the directors that "indifference has entirely disappeared." It should be said that the total amount of profit- sharing dividend, neither at present nor in the original plan, is affected by the number of those sharing. If for any reason an employe is debarred from participating, his share is always divided among the others.

This plan continued in operation until July 1890, when the organization of the company underwent a change. The firm was then incorporated as a stock company, under the prospectus of which it was in effect bound to pay 12 per cent, upon the com- mon stock if that amount were earned. Now 12 per cent, was about the same rate as employe's had earned under the old plan. Consequently it was an easy and just arrangement to adopt the plan of paying to the employe's as their share of the profits the same rate of dividend upon their wages as was paid upon the common stock of the company ; and this method was then adopted, and is the one under which the company is now working. Under this plan a man earning, say #500 a year, receives a divi- dend of 12 per cent, on this amount, or $60. T The requirement of three months' service before participation in profits is retained in the new plan, but with this limitation all may share unless the right to do so is forfeited by quitting, or being discharged from, the employ of the company. The right to deny the dividend to any employ^ for cause is reserved by the company, but the amount of his dividend, as has been said, must be divided among the others and does not come to the stockholders of the company. It is also customary to charge up any waste or loss of material due to carelessness or negligence on the part of an employe against his profit-sharing dividend. This amount goes to the company. The occasion for this, however, is rare.

The results both of the original and the present plan, so far as may be indicated by dividends, are shown by the fol- lowing table giving the date of distribution, the number of laborers participating, and the percentage of profits on the wages paid :

1 Letter from D. B. Gamble, quoted also in Forum, March 1895.