Profit Sharing

Profit-Sharing, a, system adopted in some industrial establishments by which a workman receives a share of the products of labour in the shape of "profits" over and above his stipulated wage. The plan is said to have been first tried at

Paris by M. Edm. J. Leclaire, a painter and decorator, in 1842. Various improvements have since been made on Leclaire's original scheme. At present the net profits are divided into four portions, one of which is reserved for the provident society and another as wages of management, the remaining half being paid to the labourers in cash. On Messrs. Godin's ironworks at Guise a different system is followed. Here the portion of the returns assigned to each labourer is held back till it amounts to a sum sufficient to purchase a share in the business. In 1880 the interest on workmen's capital was a little under one-eighth of the sum paid in wages. In both these firms the practice is said to have been attended with the happiest results. Profit-sharing has also been introduced into Great Britain and the United States. In 1890 earnings in this form" were distributed among 11,000 hands engaged in over fifty establishments in Great Britain.