(b) More value, perhaps, attaches to the analysis by types of scheme. The figures in the following table are taken from the 19th Abstract of Labour Statistics, and relate to the position at the end of 1927.
It will be seen that the best result is shown by the "deposit" schemes, followed by the two "co-partnership" types of schemes —the share-issue type, and the bonus-capitalisation type. Much Views of Employers and of Trade Unions.—It is impos sible to make any general statement about the views of em ployers. It must be taken as significant, however, that, in spite of three-quarters of a century of active propaganda, only some 500 or 600 firms are known to have introduced any form of profit-sharing or co-partnership; and that a large proportion of this small minority have been dissatisfied with the results.
As regards the attitude of the trade unions to profit-sharing, there appears to be little doubt that this has been almost uni formly hostile, or at best indifferent. Naturally, the whole effort of the trade unions, in regard to remuneration, is directed to keeping the general level of wages in an industry as a whole as high as possible. They are not greatly concerned to secure special advantages for the workpeople in a works here or there, where the employers are exceptionally prosperous.
But further—and this is a point to which many critics of the movement attach great importance—it is conceived to be posi tively injurious to the trade union movement, as a mass organi sation, to have the workpeople in a factory here and there isolated from their fellows by special privileges, since the workpeople so placed may be expected to be wanting in zeal for the defence of their less fortunate comrades, and averse from risking their employment if a dispute should come to the final arbitrament of a strike.
The practical importance of the fundamental distinction, re ferred to above, between profit-sharing and payment by results is that while payment by results offers a bonus based on factors which are wholly or largely under the control of the workers, profit-sharing offers a bonus based on factors which are in great part outside their competence, and which depend in great part on the judgment, skill and enterprise of the directors and the management. For this reason profit-sharing compares unfavour ably with systems of payment by results, if regarded simply as a method of industrial remuneration; and it may be said at once that the shortcomings of profit-sharing as a method of remunera tion are freely admitted by many modern advocates of the system. The emphasis is nowadays laid rather upon the means profit-sharing affords of giving the workers an assurance that they are receiving "a square deal."
The weakness of profit-sharing as a stimulus to effort lies partly in the remoteness of the connection between the individual effort and the reward accruing to the individual making that effort, partly in the length of time that usually elapses between the additional exertion and the receipt of the reward, and partly in the customary smallness of the reward.
France.—Reference has already been made to some of the historic French profit-sharing schemes.
The French Profit-sharing society published in 1924 a revised (third) edition of their monograph on profit-sharing, containing the names of 140 firms practising profit-sharing in France. This total shows a slight advance on the 114 given in the second edition of the monograph 12 years earlier; but it is to be noted that the definition of profit-sharing is much wider than that adopted in Great Britain; while schemes introduced by firms domiciled in Alsace-Lorraine are now included, which would, of course, not have been included in the earlier edition. Two points of special interest in the Report may be noticed. In the first place the his toric schemes of Leclaire, Godin, the Bon Marche and others still appear in the list. Secondly, the pre-eminence of insurance com panies' schemes is still very marked, a fifth of all the schemes in the list-28 out of 140—being in insurance companies.
The 1924 Report of the French ministry of labour on profit sharing mentions two acts which make profit-sharing compulsory in two special cases, and a third which introduces a kind of per missive co-partnership. An act of Dec. 18, 1915, makes profit sharing compulsory in workers' productive co-operative societies formed under the act. Particulars are given in the Report of 328 such societies, employing 12,000 workers, about half of whom are non-members. An act of Sept. 9, 1919, makes profit-sharing com pulsory under all mining concessions granted after that date, of which there were 51 at the date of the Report. An act of April 26, 1917, permits the formation of joint stock companies with labour co-partnership (societes anonymes a participation ouvriere) in the form of labour shares (actions de travail), which are the collective property of the employees organised in a co-operative society. Eleven companies had been formed under the act, at the date of the Report, of which six were actually working as joint stock companies with labour co-partnership; but it is stated to be too early to form any conclusion as to the success of the experiment.