Life Insurance.

A Blanket Policy has been issued by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, insuring the lives of employes of the Company desiring to avail themselves of this protection through the medium of the Co-operative Welfare Association.

Certificates of Insurance providing for $1,000 life insurance have been delivered into the possession of each member of the Association, to remain in full force and effect so long as the member continues in the employ of the Company and retains membership in the Co-operative Welfare Association.

This replaces the death benefit of $150 formerly paid under the Co-operative Plan of 1911, to which the members contributed 25c per month, and also replaces the $500 given by the Company to dependents of deceased employes who had been over two years in its service.

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company makes payment of benefits and insurance under its policy direct to the beneficiaries of the members of the Co-operative Welfare Association.

Each Certificate of Insurance for $1,000 issued by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, under the provisions of the Blanket Policy, entitles the holder, upon leaving the employ of the Company, to re-insure for the same amount with the Insurance Company without medical examination, at rates based upon the member's then attained age. Any such member subsequently returning to the employ will again become eligible for re-insurance under the provisions of this Blanket Policy.

A special feature of this Certificate of Insurance is a provision that in case of total and permanent disability, occurring before the member shall have attained 60 years of age, from causes arising after the issuance of insurance, the insured will be entitled to receive from the Insurance Company the $1,000 covered by the policy in monthly or yearly installments as set forth in the Certificate of Insurance for $1,000 now in the possession of each member of the Association.

Sick Benefits.

Sick benefits are payable at the rate of $1.50 per day, commencing with the eighth day's illness, for a period not to exceed 100 days in any consecutive 12 months.

This replaces the former sick relief of $1.00 per day for 100 days in any consecutive 12 months.

Pensions.

Pensions of $40.00 per month are payable to incapacitated employes who have reached 65 years of age and have been continuously in the service for 25 years; meritorious cases of long service, but falling short of these requirements, to be given special consideration. This increases the former pension plan from $20 to $40 per month. Administration.

The affairs of the Co-operative Welfare Association shall be administered by a Co-operative Council consisting of the combined membership of the two General Committees for Collective Bargaining. The administration of the Co-operative Welfare Association shall be entirely separate and distinct from the function of Collective Bargaining.

The Co-operative Council shall act as Trustees of Insurance for the Co-operative Welfare Association and shall also authorize the expenditure of all moneys, including payment of sick benefits.

The Co-operative Council shall also pass upon the issuance of Insurance Certificates and the validity and merit of all applicants for pensions.

The President of the Co-operative Welfare Association, who shall also act as Chairman of the Co-operative Council, shall be elected annually from the membership of the Associa

tion by the majority vote of all the members of the several Department Committees for Employes.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors and the President of the Company shall be the Honorary Chairmen of the Co-operative Council.

The Secretary-Treasurer of the Co-operative Council and the Assistant Secretary-Treasurer shall be appointed by the President of the Company. The Association shall employ such other assistants as may be required.

The Company's Auditing and Treasury Departments are to be placed at the disposal of the Co-operative Council for the purpose of keeping the accounts and safeguarding the funds of the Co-operative Welfare Association.

It is obvious that the spirit in which the Philadelphia Plan is developed is sincere. It is based on fundamental necessities as shown by practical experience and it is being carried out so that no fair minded participant has any fault to find with the way it is functioning.

Co-operation between employers and wage workers must be based upon a recognition of their common interest, both as parties to industry and as members of the community. Such co-operation must be continuous and constructive. Employers must realize that both their own interests and the obligations of citizenship impose upon them the necessity of a sympathetic understanding of the lives and standpoint of those with whom they work and a willingness to co-operate, without dictation or patronage, in every endeavor to improve their material or social conditions. Labor must realize its direct interest in the improvement of industrial processes, the organization of industry, the standard and quantity of production and the elimination of waste in material or effort. (Garton Memorandum.)

The larger part of the wage workers of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company are trainmen, i. e., motormen and conductors. This is an occupation which requires only a brief period of training before comparative expertness is attained. In a limited number of weeks motormen and conductors are participating in the most vital function of the responsible management. Every motorman and conductor who takes a car out of a barn through the streets of a crowded city, guides and directs a business enterprise in itself almost complete. It certainly cannot be said that such wage workers are not functioning through responsible and conscious action.

The plan is the outgrowth of business enterprise. In accepting it the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company did not shift or avoid any of its obligations and duties. The wage workers have assumed new responsibilities which are always associated with the assumption of new measures of freedom. New freedom for the wage

workers and for the management will arise from the acceptance of responsibilities and a fair attempt by both to carry out their undertakings. This will mean better workers and better work, not only by the wage workers, but by the direct representatives of the responsible management as well.

The assumption of responsibilities implies a certain order of capacities and it must be recognized that the general measure of industrial responsibility contemplated by the Philadelphia Plan is not easily obtained or easily discharged. A real feeling of responsibility cannot be lightly assumed, and if the Philadelphia Plan for Collective Bargaining and Coöperative Welfare, after many trials, eventually succeeds in inducing, developing and preserving the active interest and desire to assume responsibilities on the part of the wage workers it will be satisfactory. The full fruits of coöperation are only to be obtained after orderly growth and development.

As Dr. Eliot has so happily stated:

American liberties are to be preserved just as they are won. They have been slowly achieved by generations of sturdy, hard-working people who valued personal independence, industry, thrift, truthfulness in thought and act, respect for law, family life and home, and were always ready to fight for the defense of these things.

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The Background of Industrial Democracy

By JOHN LEITCH

O me too much of the present day discussion, looking towards the attainment of a just relation between the employer and employe concerns itself with phrases which masquerade as principles. For instance, "profit-sharing," "collective bargaining," "union recognition," "labor is not a commodity," "democratic control of industry," are discussed as though each contained in itself something which would make the employer-employe relation perfectly fair and at the same time insure a continuance of industry.

Now, the relations of industry are human; they are concretely and not abstractly economic. If one believes, as I believe, that production for profit gives a more workable basis for society than production for use, then one must of necessity direct his thought to the end that the following results may be realized:

1. A fair profit for capital, depending upon the skill of its management.

2. A fair wage for labor, depending upon the skill of its performance.

3. A fair price to the public.

It does not help matters to confuse production for use and production for profit. It is quite impossible to ride both of these horses, although I notice a tendency among those who seem to believe that all mundane affairs may be settled by further discussion to ride the one horse and speak lovingly of the other.

Let me review a few of these phrases that pass as principles. Take profit-sharing. We might hope for something in this direction if only human nature could be so arranged that every business would turn a profit. But we know that even in these times when it is so difficult for a manufacturer not to make a profit, at least one half of them do not have an excess of income over outgo. We also know that it is very rare for a new business to turn a profit which is worth mentioning until after at least five years of continuous struggle. Speaking in rather general terms,

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I think an investigation would disclose that all the business adventures which are today well-founded and making large profits, have passed through many years on the non-profit basis. Of course, in this I exclude those concerns whose prosperity, if such it may be called, is due solely to the war. They are merely evidence that sometimes it pays to gamble.

Without going into the question of whether there is at any stage, a point of contact between the employer and the employe which could support the proposition that they are partners, I think it is quite useless to discuss profit-sharing, unless its proponents will invent profit insurance.

Take collective bargaining. It proceeds on the theory that labor should sell and capital should buy in bulk at an average grading. If the employer and the employe would severally view industry as an opportunity for service, then their respective remunerations would be cared for, as of course good work well done is bound to have its financial as well as its other rewards. But since this view of industry is not general, I am in favor of collective bargaining as a means of establishing what might be called a minimum wage. I am not in favor of the kind of collective bargaining in which the seller does not offer to sell value or the buyer to give value. 'Collective bargaining becomes pernicious when the mere presence of men and not the work that they will do is offered at a price. For then we tend to encourage that belief (which is growing throughout the world and which has been so fostered by opportunist governments) that industry is an automatic mechanism built by the Creator to pay wages and not to make goods. Those of us who have participated in industry, both as workers and as managers, know clearly that it is not automatic; that wages are paid solely on production; that wages cannot be raised by agreement but only by better production and that when we raise wages without bettering production, we are only adopting new symbols to express old values and not changing relative positions. Further, when we raise wages and lessen production, which is the habit of the world today, then we are really on our way to the destruction of both capital and labor, for we cannot get something for nothing.

The matter of union recognition and the participation of labor in the control of industry are nothing in themselves. If they