Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Charles Bedaux – he promoted the Nazi king and hated the Daily Worker
In the aftermath of all change in the house of Windsor, PETER FROST tells the story of Charles Eugene Bedaux; inventor of the worst bosses’ work study system and chief supporter of Edward VIII as the Nazi king of Britain if Hitler had won the war
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
CHARLES EUGENE BEDAUX was a real bosses’ man. He was a French-American millionaire who made his fortune developing and implementing work study — ways of measuring just how hard workers were working in order to pay them less. His method used a stopwatch and clipboard.
His was one of the very first of these systems and became famous and popular among greedy big bosses and notorious and hated by workers and their trade unions. His was known as the Bedaux system or sometimes simply the “B system.”
His early work record was far from respectable. At 14 he was working as a pimp around the brothels in the Pigalle region in Paris. We will never know if it was here he first used clipboard and stopwatch to see if the customers were getting value for money.
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