Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
(1) The usual method of profit-sharing is for the employer to set aside
voluntarily a certain proportion of the profits of successful years,
to be distributed among the employees in addition to their regular
wages, the distribution being made proportionate to the amount of each
man's wages. It is thus properly called a dividend to wages, and is
equivalent to a small ownership of the stock of the business by each
worker. The advantage lies not only in the fairer distribution of the
profits of a business, but in the interest, contentment, and increased
efficiency of the employees. The self-interest of the laborers is
enlisted to prevent strikes, and a feeling of good will tends to
prevail. Not a few employers are giving a degree of profit sharing
as a mere business proposition; and the results have been generally
successful. But the method is only a sop. It touches only one of the
evils above mentioned, that of underpayment of workers. And, for that
matter, it is oftenest introduced where the workers are already well
paid. It is possible only in successful and firmly established
industries; and even in them, bad years may necessitate a temporary
cessation of dividends to wages, and generate resentment in the minds
of the laborers, who do not know the precise status of the business.
Moreover, since the workers cannot be expected to reverse the procedure
in lean years and contribute to the maintenance of the business, it
is necessary, in most industries, to reserve a considerable sum from
the profits of fat years to tide over possible periods of lean years.
It might be possible to enforce by law the accumulation of such a reserve
fund, and then the distribution of a fixed percentage of the net
profits of the business to labor-instead of permitting all the profits
to go into the pockets of owners or stockholders. But such a plan will
probably be superseded by or incorporated into some more comprehensive
solution for industrial evils, a scheme that can remedy other wrongs
besides that of inadequate wages.
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