Thomas J. Bata family name Bata
Tomáš Jan Baťa,  (Czech pronunciation: [ˈtomaːʃ jan ˈbaca]; anglicised to Thomas J. Bata; September 17, 1914 – September 1, 2008), also known as Thomas Bata Jr. and Tomáš Baťa ml., was a Czech-Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He ran the Bata Shoe Company from the 1940s until the 80s.Life and career
Baťa was born in the city of Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic, the son of Czech industrialist Tomáš Baťa. As a boy he apprenticed under his father, who began the T. & A. Bata Shoe Company in 1894 in Zlín (now in the Czech Republic). Baťa's father, however, was killed in a plane crash in 1932, when young Baťa was only 17.
One of the reasons for Tomáš Baťa's success was his vision to introduce new technologies to his company, taking production to massive levels worldwide. Another factor was World War I, which ended the market that the company had under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So between the 1920s and 1940s, Bata built factories in Asia, South America and Africa (which he foresaw as a virgin market), thus becoming the largest shoemaker in the world. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Bata white canvas sneaker/running shoe was iconic in the third world, representing between 60% and 80% of the shoe production in the countries where it operated. In Asia and South America, the company focused on everyday affordable shoe production, leaving for Europe the high-quality, high-price shoes.
In the mid-1930s, in the throes of the Great Depression, the Bata shoe company was faced with a serious dilemma: Mussolini needed boots for his army. Czechoslovaks were faced with ubiquitous layoffs and catastrophic unemployment. Baťa decided to be pragmatic to protect his livelihood and that of his employees. He rationalized that if he did not provide the army boots, some other company would, and his employees would suffer. He successfully pursued the contract, which directly assisted fascism but also saved the company.Tomáš Baťa was the equivalent of Henry Ford in breakthrough technology for his time. The company's warehouse in the then Czechoslovakia was the first automated installation in Europe (designed by Peter Behrens, architect). In the company headquarters in Zlín, the central shaft of the building was an elevator with a personal office that could move from one floor to another. Like Ford, he established a repetitive mechanical system of production, which he called "work factor". Tomáš Baťa had a social concern for his employees, paying fair wages and contributing to their welfare with social programs and sports facilities sponsored and financially supported by the company.
Baťa attended school in Czechoslovakia, England and Switzerland. Anticipating the Second World War, he, together with over 100 families from Czechoslovakia, moved to Canada in 1939 to develop the Bata Shoe Company of Canada, including a shoe factory and engineering plant, centred in a town that still bears his name, Batawa, Ontario. Another legacy is Batanagar in Kolkata, India, which originally housed the shoe factory and the clerical employees, and today is a booming condominium development maintaining the name.
Baťa successfully established and ran the new Canadian operations and during the war years, he sought to maintain the necessary coordination with as many of the overseas Bata operations as was possible. During this period, the Canadian engineering plant manufactured strategic components for the Allies, and Baťa worked together with the government in exile of President Beneš and other democratic powers. With the end of the war, the Bata company in Czechoslovak territory was nationalized and the communists began to take control and to eliminate anything even remotely reminding people of Baťa's system.
In 1945, it was clear that Zlín was lost and could no longer act as headquarters. Baťa held a meeting in East Tilbury near London, and the decision was taken that Bata Development Limited in England would become the service headquarters of the Bata Shoe Organization. In 1946, Bata operated 38 factories and 2,168 company shops; they produced 34 million pairs of shoes and employed 34,000 people. In 1948, however, Czechoslovakia was fully seized by the communist powers, and Bata enterprises in Poland, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were lost.
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