Word: scanlon
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...Scanlon was president of his local at an Ohio steel company which had been organized two years before by the Steel Workers Organization Committee, (now the United Steelworkers). The industry was still groggy from the effects of the depression: Scanlon's company was nearly bankrupt, and he was afraid it would fold, leaving the men without jobs. So, with some persuasion, he induced the company's president to go with him to S.W.O.C. headquarters in Pittsburgh to consult Clinton Golden, at that time vice-president of the steel-workers...
Golden was surprised and pleased by the visit, a strangely unorthodox one in a period of bitter industrial strife. He advised the two to dope out a way of enlisting worker cooperation to keep the business going. So Scanlon sat down with the management and worked out the first edition of his productivity plan. Under it, the workers were encouraged to suggest ways of increasing productivity, and were rewarded by bonuses for any such increase. The men in the plat thus became participating members in the enterprise, with a stake in the company's success and responsibility for its success...
...plans' success soon had other marginal steel companies pounding on the door of union head-quarters asking for similar help. Golden, chiefly to save union jobs, got Scanlon to Pittsburgh and put him to work installing his plan in these companies. Besides having been an open hearth worker, and a professional boxer, Scanlon had had training as an accountant; his ability to understand business problems won him the respect of management. Whenever a failing company took his advice, they stayed in business...
...Scanlon stayed with the Steelworkers until 1945. In that year, he had spectacular success in the Adamson Company, a small factory in Ohio. Introduction of the plan increased profits 250% and brought bonuses of 54% of wages to the workers. There were two results: the Adamson Company appeared in an article of Life, and Scanlon was invited to M.I.T. to work in the Industrial Relations section, where he is now, dividing his time between teaching and installing the plan...
...three years following graduation, he played guard and tackle for the professional Philadelphia Eagles and also served as assistant football coach under Hank Scanlon at St. Joseph's Prep in Philadelphia...