THE CO-PARTNERSHIP SCHEME
'We humbly submit that if
no idea was entertained by you of breaking our union a more successful scheme
was never promulgated to accomplish such an unintentional result'.[1]
So said Mark
Hutchins, Chairman of the Gas Workers Union,
about the profit sharing scheme set up by Livesey. Why did George Livesey think that it would both
answer his aspirations for the South Met. and at the same time destroy the Gas
Workers Union?
The bonus was to be paid
in exactly the same way as the shareholders' dividend under the sliding
scale. It was based on a relationship to
the price of gas. A base price was set
and when the price of gas was below this the shareholders got a dividend. If
the price of gas went up then the dividend went down. So the employees received a bonus for every penny
the price of gas fell. Initially there was also a 'nest egg' - that was a sum
of money which they would have had had if the scheme been running for the past
three years, plus interest.
The snag was that in order
to get this the workers had to sign an agreement to work for the Company for
twelve months at the current rate of wages. Also the nest-egg and half of the
bonus could not be withdrawn for a set period – and the length of this period
time was to be the subject of later discussions. There were exceptions to these rules for deaths
or other special circumstances but it – and this is the point – it was to be
totally forfeit in the case of strike or 'wilful injury'.
In this way the workforce
was linked into the sliding scale and gave them an incentive to help lower the
price of gas.
As we have seen Livesey
claimed to have thought up the whole scheme in a quarter of an hour - but he
did of course have a track record of trying to bring something like this in.
Back in 1882 he had said “to get the men to work heartily and thoroughly the
men must have the motive of self interest'.[2]
It is very difficult to
discover how far this scheme is a replica of the one set up in 1886 for the Company
Officers. This paid a bonus to officers linked to dividends but it is not clear
if this was tied to the sliding scale. [3]
The scheme was announced
to the men in late October or November and as many as possible were encouraged
to sign agreements. On 21st November a
meeting was held in the Board Room at Old Kent Road of delegates of from those
who had signed the agreements. Representatives
of the Union had been invited to attend as observers, but none came. The
proceedings of the meeting were taken down verbatim and circulated later to the
men.[4]
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