786 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[Septeme 



1920. 



vast new railway equipment needed for railroads in all 

 of which the mechanical goods companies share. Truly, 

 instead of gloom, the prevalent attitude in rubber should 

 be most optimistic. 



PROFIT-SHARING, PIECE WORK AND BONUSES. 



HARASSED with pleas for higher wages and shorter 

 working time, and menaced with direct or covert 

 threats of strikes, many a rubber concern, operating 

 perhaps on a narrow margin of profit and against keen 

 competition, is often sorely puzzled as to how best to 

 placate discontented operatives. To raise the wage 

 scale without being able to increase the selling price 

 of the products, much less to reduce the working time 

 while advancing the fixed pay, may mean flirting with 

 failure. Finally, to the distracted concern casting 

 about for a solution for the vexing problem the profit- 

 sharing plan is suggested as a "happy compromise" ; 

 and the managers, like the drowning man who clutches 

 even at a straw, seize upon the plan. If it be accepted 

 by the employes the managers flatter themselves on 

 their good fortune in thus composing the disgruntled 

 and averting an impending disaster. Yet what they 

 really do is to administer to themselves and their em- 

 ployes a Lethean draught to make them for the time 

 being forget their mutual troubles, while blindly trust- 

 ing to the morrow to supply the deficiencies of the 

 present day. 



Because in some favorable instances the profit- 

 sharing scheme has been a success, that does not alter 

 the fact that it is unscientific and cannot be applied 

 efficiently in a wide variety of cases. For a concern to 

 virtually agree not only to maintain a certain scale of 

 wages, but also to distribute regularly a generous share of 

 profits to its employes, means assuming an obligation 

 that is often very difficult to discharge. Unforeseen 

 circumstances may make such profit smaller than the 

 employes had been led to expect, or it may disappear 

 altogether, arousing suspicion and ill-feeling among 

 the workers. Setbacks come to even well-directed 

 concerns ; and statistics remind us that but one out 

 of five business ventures proves a money-making en- 

 terprise. Hence, when the share of profit fails to 

 materialize it may be hard to convince the disap- 

 pointed workers that they have not been tricked. 

 Stockholders, accustomed to business reverses, may 

 resign themselves meekly to the passing or reduction 

 of a dividend ; but impractical employes, who waived 

 their demand for more pay and accepted the will-o'- 

 the-wisp of profit-sharing, may angrily renew their 

 claims, and the last state of the temporizing employer 

 may be worse than the first. 



Even though some profits be declared, the ardor of 

 the zealous, ambitious worker is sooner or later chilled 

 by the indiflference of the lazy or incompetent worker 



who shares equally in the awards, and he either lapses 

 into the humdrum of mediocrity or goes elsewhere tO' 

 better himself. While the wage system will linger 

 long with us, and while in some forms of employment 

 it is neither feasible nor desirable to supplant it with 

 any other form of compensation, yet for a great many 

 industries a much more elastic system has been found 

 advisable to add zest to work. Such procedure is to 

 pay men for what they actually do in quantity and 

 quality, and not a portion of profits that some one else 

 may have won for them through good fortune or 

 through rare managerial skill. A close approximation 

 to this is seen in the piece-work system that obtains 

 in some of the largest rubber factories in the country, 

 and which mode of rewarding industry provides arh 

 unfailing incentive to speed up and increase produc- 

 tion, while tending to disarm distrust and lessen fric- 

 tion between employer and employed. 



The second largest steel producing concern in 

 America, employing over 100,000 men, rejected the 

 profit-sharing system as too vague and uncertain and 

 installed the wage and premium plan instead with 

 striking success. Not only are the workers assured of 

 a fixed daily allowance, but they also receive a bonus 

 for everything done beyond a specific minimum 

 amount. No man is too high or too low to benefit by 

 this plan ; and even where a relatively small amount 

 of manual labor enters into a task, a man gets extra 

 compensation for what he saves in fuel or other com- 

 modities, or for devising time- and labor-saving proc- 

 esses. It means maintaining a very complete cost 

 system, but the investment yields a good return. Best 

 of all, it pleases the worker to be paid fairly and quick- 

 ly for personal, individual service, and for every extra 

 eft'ort he puts forth, instead of having to wait a long 

 time for possible "profits." Perhaps this is the reason 

 why this concern did not have to close its mills for 

 even a dav during the big steel-workers' strike last 

 fall. 



HAS THE FIBER SOLE ENEMIES? 



THERE IS NO QUESTION that the rubber fiber sole found 

 many friends among the wearers of medium 

 priced shoes. This for the very good reason that it 

 outwore two or three leather soles. Complaint is be- 

 ginning to be heard that it is not so easily obtainable 

 as it was in the past, that retailers and repair men 

 often do not now stock it. One suggested reason is 

 that repairers do not desire their work to last too long. 

 Another is that the leather sole men are quietly fight- 

 ing the fiber sole as jeopardizing their business. It is 

 probable that neither of these conditions prevails to 

 any great extent. Furthermore, were such conditions 

 prevalent, they would be, if merely taken advantage of, . 

 an ideal background for a big drive in fiber soles. 



