Henri Fayol and the strike threat
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Few business leaders talk about the strikes that broke out in their company. Henri Fayol, however, wrote an unfinished professional autobiography in which he could not avoid the subject. While he does not state clearly what behavior he adopted in order to avoid them, he does attempt to quantify the number of strike days in his mines and plants. The figures he uses are not complete but this article fills this gap by analyzing all the different strikes that Fayol was faced with during his time as CEO. Statistics show that he had fewer strikes in his mines than the national average, while the number of strikes in his plants was closer to the national average. The business archives of Commentry-Fourchambault and Decazeville permit detailed analyses of every strike and show that Fayol acted like the other top managers of his time, although he did not lower salaries when the prices of the coal – and profits – fell. On the other hand, he increased salaries less during the periods when the market turned back up. He also paid careful attention to the evolution of the wages of his employees relative to those of other companies.
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