The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-22

have bonus plans tB.C. ;FORBES , which do not reach down to the ordi' nary workers, but reward, proportion ately, employees filling all the more i'm portant positions.
 Charles M. Schwab has always been an ardent believer in paying only mod crate fixed salaries and giving his executives and others in authority op- portunities to earn, through bonus or profit sharing, what they are actually worth to the company. have heard that MT. Schwab's plan is to pay no body more than $10,O0Q year in straight salary. The United States Steel corporation also has a system for re- warding high-ups by means of bonus in addition to paying normal salaries. General Motors not long ago devised
 comprehensive system for enabling all it's men of managerial rank to sub very liberal returns. Our biggest finan-
 cial institution also has favored some what similar system. ~, How to reach rank and file workmen has been a problem. The steel corpora | tion was among the first of our huge | enterprises to offer special inducements ' to wage earners to subscribe for stock by easy payments, and this plan has ! proved so successful that. under 1t, no | fewer than S03, ,291 shares of United | States Steel common and 151, ,530 shares | of preferred have been subscribed for | by workers. The par value of this stock represents a total of $95, ,4s2, 100.
 The. American Telephone and Tele- graph company, perhaps the largest | employer in the world, has been making very special efforts to enroll employees as stockholders. Only a handful of | American corporations have a greater | total number of stockholders than this company has of employe stockholders \ alone. Other large organizations of various | kinds likewise have made headway dur K ing recent years in enlisting their work
 CTS as subscribers for either the regular securities or securities carrying special
 advantages. General Electric now
 comes under the latter Glass.
 A few concerns are definitely headed N towards control by eInp1oye stockhold-
 CTS. The Philadelphia Rapid Transit
 company Is the best known example
 Golden Rule Nash" is pressing to-
 wards the same goal. Several years ago
 John H. Patterson instituted plan for
 dividing with employees 5 per cent of
 all profits after a moderate return on
 the capital invested in the National
 Cash Register company. Then we have
 had several instances during the last
 two UT tuEcS years oA AceAuc OL LITTLE
 turning over control to faithful em'
 pioyes.
 Now comes the Bank of Italy, Cali; Efornia, with a unique plan to bring
 about ownership and control by it's 2,2Ot Iemployes.
 The accomplish this, semi annually l40 per cent of the net profits, after divi- Idends have been paid and customary depreciation and reserves have been provided, will be placed by the bank to lthe credit of the employees. The em- lployes themselves will contribute some thing from their salaries. The com
 bined total will be used to purchase
 bank stock. Each employe win re- Iceive an amount of stock based upon
 his or her contribution from salary NThe maximum that any one employe lean contribute is 10 per ent of the an Nnnal salary plus an additional, per cent for each years service. "The ladoption of this plan paves the way for 1.-the ultimate employe control of the IIbank," says the official announcement
 The author of this unique plan is | llGiannani, who founded the institution i |20 years ago and was its president along under the other day when, as recorded lin this column few days ago, he be- came chairman in order to make way flor a new president, James A. Baciga- Ilupip. In a few years the latter will
 give way to some other executive in ac- Icordance with a plan for the regular
 rotation of presidents.
 It is often said "thes worker of today
 is the capitalist of tomorrow" Appar- |ently this rule is to become distinctly more common in coming years.