Probably few industrial announcements have created a more world-wide comment than did this one, and hardly any one got the facts quite right. Workmen quite generally believed that they were going to get five dollars a day, regardless of what work they did.
The facts were somewhat different from the general impression. The plan was to distribute profits, but instead of waiting until the profits had been earned—to approximate them in advance and to add them, under certain conditions, to the wages of those persons who had been in the employ of the company for six months or more. It was classified participation among three classes of employees:
(1) Married men living with and taking good care of their families.
(2) Single men over twenty-two years of age who are of proved thrifty habits.
(3) Young men under twenty-two years of age, and women who are the sole support of some next of kin.
A man was first to be paid his just wages—which were then on an average of about fifteen per cent. above the usual market wage. He was then eligible to a certain profit. His wages plus his profit were calculated to give a minimum daily income of five dollars. The profit sharing rate was divided on an hour basis and was credited to the hourly wage rate, so as to give those receiving the lowest hourly rate the largest proportion of profits. It was paid every two weeks with the wages. For example, a man who received thirty-four cents an hour had a profit rate of twenty-eight and one half cents an hour—which would give him a daily income of five dollars. A man receiving fifty-four cents an hour would have a profit rate of twenty-one cents an hour—which would give him a daily income of six dollars.