LABOR: Four Paychecks a Year

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Scandinavia is a hub of social and economic experimentation. Years before Women's Lib got going in the U.S., the Swedes created the hemmaman, a housebound husband who sent his wife off to work. Last year the Swedes also changed much of their auto industry by replacing sections of the assembly line with group assembly techniques (TIME, Jan. 17). Now R. BØg JØrgensen's Maskinfabrik, a Danish company that is Scandinavia's largest maker of food canning and freezing equipment, is pioneering an alternative to the weekly or monthly paycheck for employees.

Through 1970, the company paid its 180 employees monthly by check. But since January 1971 it has issued no paychecks at all; instead, it deposits salaries directly into each employee's bank account. And it makes only four such deposits a year. Workers get 15% of their salary each Feb. 6, May 6, Aug. 6 and Nov. 6 (another 10% is withheld each quarter to pay stiff Danish taxes).

By adopting the novel system, Paul BØg JØrgensen, manager of the family-owned company, was able to eliminate the payroll department. Improbably, he seems to have improved employee morale too. Workers like the new arrangement because getting their pay in big chunks enables them to buy household supplies at low bulk prices and come up more easily with down payments for cars, houses and large appliances. Indeed, the system is working so well that several other Danish, and some foreign concerns are thinking of copying it.