Bedaux Reformed

Some 5,000,000 listeners last week heard the once-notorious Bedaux ("speed-up") System and the C.I.O. publicly agree. The president of the Bedaux Co. and the president of the left-wing Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Union, broadcasting on America's Town Meeting of the Air concurred: joint management, labor, Government, and engineering councils were the way to speed up war production.

The president of the Bedaux Co. is no longer Charles E. Bedaux, nor are its policies his. Much water has gone under the bridge since he tried to publicize his system by touring the U.S. with the Duke of Windsor (TIME, Nov. 15, 1937). When a howl from the A.F. of L. and C.I.O. queered the tour and stigmatized the name of Bedaux, Bedaux's lieutenants heaped bitter words on him. He retired, went back to France. Into the presidency moved deep-eyed, handsome Albert Ramond. Said he last week: "We stuck to the sinking ship and we got very wet."

It took three years for Bedaux Co. to live down its bad name with labor. But last year its engineers operated in 83 plants, most of them in basic industries where C.I.O. has its greatest strength. They get along fine with the unions, and Bedaux Co. is making money once more.

Charles Bedaux in 1916 started efficiency engineering where famed Frederick Taylor and the Halsey systems left off. His engineers made their time & motion studies hiding behind pillars with stop watches. They frequently drew up recommendations without consulting even foremen, installed bonus systems which went 75% to the worker, 25% to supervisors as an incentive to push the men. Their standard "B unit," basis of pay, became hated by labor because it was increased as output rose, so that bonuses became harder & harder to earn while basic pay remained unchanged. Says Albert Ramond: ". . . We were far from blameless. We left the door open for abuses. When the depression came, abuses came with it."

Albert Ramond and his colleagues changed all that. When hired for an efficiency survey, they now recommend that foremen and union leaders (or workers' representatives) be called in. Now it is rare for Bedaux Co. to go into unorganized plants. Says Albert Ramond: "We need the union's practical skill as well as our own scientific skill so that with management we may arrive at a tri-partite agreement." Bonuses now go 100% to the worker, and he understands the pay formula (which he didn't before).

Apart from its appeasement of labor, the Bedaux system is basically the same. It is not a "system" but an efficiency-engineering service, with each plant a fresh problem. Its engineers are most successful in diversified plants with a multiplicity of operations. A shipyard is down the Bedaux alley, a well-planned auto assembly line is not. At U.S. Steel's Gary plant, Bedaux engineers increased repair department personnel 10%, claim to have upped efficiency 80%. In a steel foundry making tank parts, production jumped from 300 to 1,000 tons monthly while man-hours per ton were cut 50%. Bedaux engineers are working in many a U.S. armament factory, have been called in to stop a slump caused by a wage ceiling in one of the largest munitions plants in Canada.

Says Albert Ramond: "Once losses are disclosed it becomes a relatively easy affair to eliminate them, as long as managers, workers and engineers are of one will." French-born, U.S.-naturalized, he started in the efficiency business 22 years ago as Charles Bedaux's No. 6 man. He controls the company by agreement only, since Charles Bedaux and wife (now reported in Occupied France) still own 55% of the stock. But Ramond and his fellow engineers, thanks to a bonus system of their own, are making and keeping most of the money.

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