CZECHS INVADE BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 72, 27 March 1933, Page 9

CZECHS INVADE BRITAIN

TO MANUFACTURE SHOES

AN ENTERPRISING FIRM

The Bata Shoe Company, which is j turning out 150,000 pairs of boots and shoes a day at Zlin, in Czechoslovakia, and many thousands more at 1 its other European factories, has begun' to erect a factory at East Tilbury, Essex, states the London "Times Trade Supplement." This extension is being undertaken partly because of tho British tariff and the depreciated exchange, which have made it difficult for'Bata factories abroad to compete in the.British market, partly because of tho Ottawa Agreements, which confer an advantage on firms exporting footwear from this country to other parts of the Empire. As the Bata company sees no possibility of making rubber footwear hero at prices that could compete with those of the imported Japanese product, this branch of tho trade -will not bo touched at Tilbury. But the firm is now building a factory- for rubber .boots and shoes in India, and, if possible, will import them into England under the preferential tariff.

The 600-acre site for tho Tilbury extension was bought a year ago by the late Mr. Thomas Bata.

Houses will bo built on tho estate for the workpeople, who will work five days a week and nine hours and a half a day. They will be paid at piecework rates, with a fixed minimum, and will also receive each week a share in profits. As in all the Bata factories, each Workshop or department will keep its own profit and loss account, and will be run as a self-contained unit, buying from tho department'below it in the chain of operations and selling its product to the one above. Each worker will be paid half his share of his department's weekly profit in cash, and the other half will be invested for him, at 10 per cent., ih the business.