Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Social Movements - 1. Labour Questions and Social politics - Social Insurance
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social insurance.
719
ses. When obligation to enter one of these funds has been imposed on
employees, that obligation must be deemed to be based on a contract of service.
The employer, or, as it may be, the State or commune, often makes regular
contributions to the various funds, and several private employers have,
moreover, endowed the pension fund established for the benefit of their
workpeople with a capital of more or less material consequence for the
financial standing of the fund, by way of a first push-off. There do,
however, exist pension funds whose exclusiveness is very slightly marked, —
thus, admission may be open to all who belong to a certain crowded
profession in some town of importance —, as well as there are pension funds
that give free admission to all. In these cases admission is voluntary. Among
both the exclusive and the non-exclusive funds one distinguishes two
different categories, namely (l) those whose object is to provide pensions
to the members themselves and (2) those whose purpose is to assure this
advantages to members’ widows and children. Occasionally both these
objects are combined within one and the same fund. Many pension funds,
particularly the larger ones, operate in accordance with modern statistical
principles: members’ fees predetermined, independent of the number of
members, nicely adjusted to the benefits held forth, and progressive
accumulation of funds on a sound scientific basis. A good many pension
funds operate on principles according to which the value of the pension
offered is undetermined, which may be effected in two ways. Either the
amount of the pension is not fixed, but is made dependent on the amount
of the means available and the number of the pensioners, or else a certain
number of pensions is fixed beforehand, so that a person otherwise entitled
to pension does not enter into receipt of his pension until a vacancy occurs.
Occasionally pensions are granted only to the necessitous, in which case
they assume the character of relief, rather than of pensions in the
ordinary sense.
Legislation in force. Pension funds were long left by legislation to
their own resources. This state of things, however, was terminated in
1912, when pension funds, along with certain other analogous societies,
were made the subject of a special law, namely the Friendly Societies
Act of the 29th June 1912.
The Act just referred to embraces in its scope societies formed for mutual
aid which, without transacting insurance business for commercial profit, and
without providing sickness relief, carry on certain operations coming under the
head of personal insurance, such as the provision of pensions, the disbursement
of a, small sum of capital on the death of a member, and the like. To this
category belong not only the pension funds, but also the so-called life insurance
societies. These latter societies, about a hundred of which would be probably
in existence at present, transact a species of life insurance on a minor scale,
and with a simpler form of procedure than the big life insurance companies.
The intention of the above-mentioned Act is (1) to place on a legal footing,
and give a recognized status to, the work of friendly societies, and (2) to
confine within proper limits the operations of friendly societies, and to provide
for a certain supervision and control thereof. With the last-named object in
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