The Arizona copper camp., 1919-09-20
by distribution of profits, has failed
when applied to workers

when applied to workers.
In case OF. executives the situation is
different. 1t is direction by higher
executives which really makes profits.
They. do the buying. selling, borrowing
and manoeuvering so necessary to
business. If a season is not success
full they know why. There is no mys-
terry about depreciation and reserve;
working in February, they can visual
ize a, profit in December 1t has there
fore become the practice among for
ward looking organizations, to have ex
ecutivesr who manage the capital share
in fruits of their efforts. in National
Cash Register Co., for instance, fixed
salaries are quite low, but share in
profits will often equal or exceed the
years salary. In other corporations
executives and higher employees are
permitted to buy shares under an
agreement to resell when connection
with the company terminates. They
commonly do not pay any money but
merely give promissory note with
the stock as collateral. This is only
an easy way of adding a bonus to
salary based on earnings-it cuts out
a lot of mathematics.
Virtue Which Irritates.
Then there are plans by which em-
ployees are aided in purchase. of stock
The most notable is that of the Steel
| Corporation, under a partial payment
system. This plan is we'll thought of
by a number of leading business men,,
as making for identity Of interest be-
tween worker and stockholder.
| But it is strongly to be doubted il
number of shares held by rank and file
| is sufficient to give them real inter-
est or, that the dividends are suffi-
GENTLY large to make them realize
| there is connection between daily
work and semi-annual dividend. 1t is
urged that if even 10 per cent of EN-.
ployees were owners of stock, they
would act as a leaven and make for
better work. Devotees of stock own
ership are always ready with instances
in which faithful wOrkmen-stOckhold-
ers, warning against waste, fetch in
bits of metal lost on the roadway and
chide their fellow workers. | have
looked into number of these exam
i,ples and find most of them merely ex-
lpressions of renewed license to be a
jbusy body, more apt to irritate his fel,
lows than to help the company.
Opportunity to purchase stock is
properly to be regarded not as a
l,method of adjusting relation between
labor and capital, or increasing mutual
productivity, but as a means of en-
Icouraging stalwart independence
through thrift.
If No Profits Are Earned?
But you cannot share profits or
make purchase of stock desirable unr
less you have profits. One out of
every five enterprises started fails;
of those that continue, only about 20
per cent show profits. The man work
ing for the skilfully managed company
is commonly no more efficient than
the man working for the poorly man
aged company that fails. Why, if re-
spective working talents are about
equal, should the first worker get
more than the second?
The satisfactory way of paying a
man is for what he does, 1t is up to
the employer to make the profit II
the employer cannot, he has demoll'
strated he is incompetent TO be
charged with management of capital.
The larger visioned employers all rec
lognize that the man who wants to pay
low wages-less than justly due-is
more of a menace to the wage system
than the Bolshevik.
! But what IS adequate payment?
; There can be no rule until mankind
has been ironed into uniformity
which will probably take little
while. There are grades of. labor and
of men. The street sweeper is not on
a par with the matchmaker, although
he may have greater potentialities.
Christian Girl, president of Standard
Parts Co., of Cleveland, once swept
the streets of Cleveland, but did not
insist that as a street sweeper he
should be paid the salary he gets as
president of a great organization. We
cannot escape getting back to the
controlling relation between wage, and
work Through the work it is always
possible to arrive at adequate pay
; ment.
In case of Baldwin's, Disston's and
Endicott- t-Johnson, the relations be-
tween company and men are so init.
mate and knowledge of the work SO
mutually exact that striking wage bar
gains gives no, trouble. But all con