Background
Charles Bedaux was born on October 11, 1886, in Charenton-le-Pont, France, a suburb of Paris, a younger son of Charles Emile Bedaux, a draftsman, and Marie Eulalie (Plotkin) Bedaux.
Charles Bedaux was born on October 11, 1886, in Charenton-le-Pont, France, a suburb of Paris, a younger son of Charles Emile Bedaux, a draftsman, and Marie Eulalie (Plotkin) Bedaux.
Clarles’s two brothers reportedly went into civil engineering (a sister became a dressmaker); but Charles, restless and ambitious, left France in 1906 at the age of nineteen to seek his fortune in America. He worked as a sandhog under the East River in New York City, as a Berlitz teacher of French in St. Louis, and as a management consultant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1917. Bedaux capitalized on the national interest in efficiency by devising his own system of management to rival that of Frederick W. Taylor. He opened an office in Cleveland in 1918 and, with the rapid growth of his business, moved to New York City in 1920.
The popularity of the "Bedaux system" rested on its ability to produce dramatic increases in labor productivity quickly and cheaply. It was a simple system which did not, like Taylor's, involve a major restructuring of management. Rather, the Bedaux system placed virtually the entire burden for increased efficiency on labor. Taylor, by using the stopwatch, had shown how to determine the time required for any operation, but he had had to add an arbitrary allowance for necessary rest. Bedaux claimed to have discovered a method by which he could calculate the exact amount of rest required for any given task. By combining work and rest in the correct proportions, Bedaux could formulate a common measure for all human labor, which he called the Bedaux unit or "B, " equal to the amount of work that should be performed in one minute.
Such a standard unit of labor offered many advantages. It permitted comparisons of the relative efficiency of workers, departments, and plants regardless of the type of work being done. It was the basis for an incentive system of wage payments. The worker received extra pay for work in excess of 60 "B" units per hour. Bedaux claimed that his system increased the average output per worker by one-third.
A brilliant opportunist with a gift for salesmanship, Bedaux enjoyed a remarkable success. By 1931 he had ten offices around the world employing over two hundred engineers. His system was adopted by more than six hundred firms employing over 325, 000 workers, including some of the world's largest corporations. Bedaux was able to live in France in opulent luxury, leaving day-to-day operations to subordinates.
The Bedaux system, however, declined in popularity in the 1930's owing to opposition from organized labor. An investigation sponsored by the American Federation of Labor concluded that beneath its pseudoscientific jargon the Bedaux system was simply a "speed-up. " The report held that the production standards were arbitrary and frequently too high and that other elements of good management were neglected.
Wealth and success did not satisfy Bedaux's Napoleonic ambitions. He wanted to be accepted by the great and to play a role in large affairs. In 1937 he achieved international fame when the Duke of Windsor (the recent King Edward VIII of England) married the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson at his château in France. Though Bedaux offered his hospitality without having previously met either the Duke or Mrs. Simpson, a friendship blossomed. Drawing upon contacts already formed with the Nazi elite, Bedaux arranged a German tour for the Duke, who was interested in labor conditions in various countries. Bedaux attempted to follow up this success by sponsoring a tour of the United States by the Windsors. The visit, however, had to be canceled because of the protests of American labor leaders against Bedaux and his system. This fiasco alienated Bedaux from the United States and encouraged his developing fascist sympathies.
After the fall of France in 1940, Bedaux became an economic adviser to both the Nazi rulers of France and the Vichy government. His most ambitious scheme was for a peanut oil pipeline and railroad across the Sahara by means of which he hoped to ease the shortage of edible oils in occupied Europe. While in Algeria to begin this project, he was captured by the Allies when they invaded North Africa in November 1942. Bedaux was returned to the United States, where he was held in custody by immigration authorities in Miami, Florida. In February 1944 it was determined that he was still an American citizen and that a grand jury should consider whether he should be indicted for treason and for communicating with the enemy. Still held in Miami, Bedaux then committed suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills. After Christian Science services in Boston, he was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachussets.
Charles Bedaux was one of the leading contributors in the field of work measurement by creating the Bedaux system which popularity rested on its ability to produce dramatic increases in labor productivity quickly and cheaply. But later the American Federation of Labor concluded that the Bedaux system was simply a "speed-up. " The report held that the production standards were arbitrary and frequently too high and that other elements of good management were neglected. He is also famous for his friendship with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who married at his château in France. After this event in 1940, Bedaux became an economic adviser to both the Nazi rulers of France and the Vichy government.
Charles Bedaux's first marriage, to Blanche Allen of St. Louis, ended in divorce; his second wife was Fern Lombard of Grand Rapids. By his first wife he had a son, Charles Emile, born in 1909.
