Where is Zlin?
The town of Zlin lies in the south-eastern corner of the Czech Republic, close to Vienna and Budapest. 1000 miles west in Essex, England a large wall map displayed in the Bata Resource Centre in East Tilbury shows Zlin at the centre of the world. It was the birthplace of Thomas Bata who created the Bata Shoe Company. Bata founded his company in 1894 and his dream was make cheap affordable shoes for everyone. He also wanted shoes to be made in modern clean factories by a contented workforce that enjoyed good pay and welfare conditions. Back in Victorian times owning a good pair of shoes was a luxury and once acquired they were expected to last a lifetime. Working conditions were grim, with virtually no health or safely regulations at work and little sickness care or pension provision. Bata was not a utopian idealist. He was a businessman who believed that a happy worker was a productive one. This philosophy had been proven in the Zlin factory. To further his ambition to be the ‘shoemake
