Word: lincoln
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...when the House Naval. Affairs Committee finally got the whole story of the Lincoln Electric Co.'s bonus system last week, it looked like something else again. It was, in fact, the story of an eight-year-old wage and production policy established by a Cleveland electrical engineer with a mania for incentive...
James Finney Lincoln is the biggest maker of electrodes and welding equipment in the U.S., and he likes to intone that "the labor cost of any product can be reduced to zero" through inciting workers to make continuous improvements in production method and design...
Since 1934, Lincoln Electric's own operations have been a case history of James F. Lincoln's pet theory. With sales ballooning from $4,273,000 to $24,189,000, and profits rising more slowly from $1,403,000 to $2,583,000, he raised his incentive bonus payments from 10% of net to 80%. This system is worked in conjunction with low base pay compared with going rates for the trade, so as to permit the company-in James Lincoln's words-to "skate through a tough period without going broke." Nevertheless the average worker...
Ninety percent of Lincoln's whopping bonuses go to the men behind the machines and, to make them still more profit-conscious, they have been permitted to buy 30% of the company's stock. As for the specific 1941 extras that horrified the House Committee, they went to reward executives for the following kinds of value received...
...year "foreman" who raked in a $25,000 bonus was actually Lincoln's chief metallurgist. He developed a new welding electrode that cut production costs 20%, discovered a new way to weld light and heavy armor plate that saves 20% on nickel and chrome...