Companies will be forced to share their profits with employees under plans being considered by Ed Miliband’s Labour party. Any firm with more than 50 staff members would be obliged to set up a profit-sharing scheme, with workers being handed a cash sum based on their employers’ financial position.

Advocates for the policy within Labour argue that, while economic growth is benefiting the top 1% of earners, it no longer trickles down to the majority of the workforce.

While last month David Cameron urged companies to give their workers a pay rise as Britain enjoyed economic growth, the policy under consideration by Labour would ensure that this took place.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics on company size suggest that there are about 36,000 companies with 50 or more employees in Britain, employing a total of 12.9 million people. The legislation would therefore affect about 53% of the people employed in the UK.

Gareth Thomas MP, a shadow minister who is being mooted as a possible Labour candidate for London mayor, said that the policy had already been adopted by the affiliated Co-operative party, represented in parliament by 31 Labour MPs, and was now under consideration at the highest levels of the party.

Thomas, who is chairman of the Co-op party, of which shadow chancellor Ed Balls is a member, said: “While there are some great British companies such as John Lewis who succeed through a shared economic approach to business growth, too many still base their models on low wages and low skills.

“This has contributed to an economy where hard work too often doesn’t lead to higher wages for the working majority, but simply gets funnelled into greater rewards for those at the very top.

“Through allowing employees to share in the profits that get made, a John Lewis approach would allow Britain to better harness the effort and commitment of the whole workforce.”

British companies are in a stronger financial position than they have been for years, yet private sector wages are rising at only 2.1%, according to the ONS, half the rate before the crisis. In contrast, publicly listed companies paid shareholders £79bn in regular dividends last year, a record.

There is evidence suggesting that mandatory profit-sharing schemes increase productivity. In 2012, the most recent year available for comparison purposes, France, which has a mandatory profit-sharing law in place, had the second-highest level of productivity per hour worked in the G7, more than 30% higher than the UK, which is languishing in sixth place.

Last month the respected thinktank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, claimed that the UK must fix its productivity problem to secure future economic growth and improve living standards.

Britain’s productivity gap with other G7 advanced economies has widened to its largest level since 1992, according to official figures. A number of the best British companies already have generous profit-sharing schemes in place, with 32% of private sector workplaces using profit-sharing to reward at least some of their employees.