The T. & A. Baťa Shoe Company was founded in 1894 in Zlín, Moravia by Tomáš Baťa and his siblings and grew to employ over 600 workers by 1912 due to the success of their affordable leather and textile shoe called the "Batovky." During World War I and the subsequent economic crisis, Tomáš Baťa cut shoe prices in half and established welfare programs for employees to help the company continue growing internationally. By the 1930s, Bata had over 65,000 employees worldwide and factories across Europe and in countries like Canada, India, and the United States.

1. The T. & A. Baťa Shoe Company was founded in 1894 in Zlín, Moravia, (then Austro-Hungarian Empire,
today the Czech Republic) by Tomáš Baťa (Czech pronunciation: [ˈtomaːʃ ˈbaca]), his brother Antonín and
his sister Anna, whose family had been cobblers for generations. The company employed 10 full-time
employees with a fixed work schedule and a regular weekly wage, a rare find in its time.
In 1895, Tomáš found himself facing financial difficulties, and debts abounded. To overcome
these serious setbacks, Tomáš decided to sew shoes from canvas instead of leather. This type of
shoe became very popular and helped the company grow to 50 employees. Four years later, Bata
installed its first steam-driven machines, beginning a period of rapid modernization. In 1904
Tomáš Baťa introduced mechanized production techniques that allowed the Bata Shoe Company
to become one of the first mass producers of shoes in Europe. Its first mass product, the
“Batovky,” was a leather and textile shoe for working people that was notable for its simplicity,
style, light weight and affordable price. Its success helped fuel the company’s growth and, by
1912, Bata was employing 600 full-time workers, plus another several hundred who worked out
of their homes in neighboring villages.
World War I
In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, the company had a significant development due to
military orders. From 1914 to 1918 the number of Baťa’s employees increased ten times. The
company opened its own stores in Zlín, Prague, Liberec, Vienna and Pilsen, among other towns.
In the global economic slump that followed World War I, the newly created country of
Czechoslovakia was particularly hard hit. With its currency devalued by 75%, demand for
products dropped, production was cut back, and unemployment was at an all-time high. Tomas
Bata responded to the crisis by cutting the price of Bata shoes in half. The company’s workers
agreed to a temporary 40 percent reduction in wages; in turn, Bata provided food, clothing, and
other necessities at half-price. He also introduced one of the first profit sharing initiative
transforming all employees into associates with a shared interest in the company's success
(today's equivalent of performance based incentives and stock options).
Shoemaker to the world
Consumer response to the price drop was dramatic. While most competitors were forced to close
due to the crisis in demand between 1923 and 1925, Bata was expanding as demand for the
inexpensive shoes grew rapidly. The Bata Shoe Company increased production and hired more
workers. Zlin became a veritable factory town, a "Bataville" covering several acres. On the site
were grouped tanneries, a brickyard, a chemical factory, a mechanical equipment plant and repair
shop, workshops for the production of rubber, a paper pulp and cardboard factory (for production
of packaging), a fabric factory (for lining for shoes and socks), a shoe-shine factory, a power
plant and a farming activities to cover both food and energy needs... Horizontal and vertical
integration. Workers, "Batamen", and their families had at their disposal all the necessary
everyday life services: housing, shops, schools, hospital, etc.
The T. & A. Baťa Shoe Company

2. Bata's Skyscraper
Batovka Shoe
Bata in Zlin

3. Bata employee
housing
1922 Advertising
Bata Store in the
1920's

4. Bata Store in the
1920's
International growth
Tomáš Baťa
Lockheed 10 Electra executive aircraft operated prewar by Bata in Europe
Bata also began to build towns and factories outside of Czechoslovakia (Poland, Latvia,
Romania, Switzerland, France) and to diversify into such industries as tanning (1915), the energy
industry (1917), agriculture (1917), forest farming (1918), newspaper publishing (1918), brick
manufacturing (1918), wood processing (1919), the rubber industry (1923), the construction
industry (1924), railway and air transport (1924), book publishing (1926), the film industry
(1927), food processing (1927), chemical production (1928), tyre manufacturing (1930),

5. insurance (1930), textile production (1931), motor transport (1930), sea transport (1932), and
coal mining (1932). Airplane manufacturing (1934), synthetic fibre production (1935), and river
transport (1938). In 1923 the company boasted 112 branches.
In 1924 Tomáš Baťa displayed his business acumen by figuring out how much turnover he
needed to make with his annual plan, weekly plans and daily plans. Baťa utilized four types of
wages – fixed rate, individual order based rate, collective task rate and profit contribution rate.
He also set what became known as Baťa prices – numbers ending with a nine rather than with a
whole number. His business skyrocketed. Soon Baťa found himself the fourth richest person in
Czechoslovakia. From 1926 to 1928 the business blossomed as productivity rose 75 percent and
the number of employees increased by 35 percent. In 1927 production lines were installed, and
the company had its own hospital. By the end of 1928, the company’s head factory was
composed of 30 buildings. Then the entrepreneur created educational organizations such as the
Baťa School of Work and introduced the five-day work week. In 1930 he established a stunning
shoe museum that maps shoe production from the earliest times to the contemporary age
throughout the world. By 1931 there were factories in Germany, England, the Netherlands,
Poland and in other countries.
In 1932, at the age of 56, Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash during take off under bad weather
conditions at Zlín Airport. Control of the company was passed to his half-brother, Jan, and his
son, Thomas John Bata, who would go on to lead the company for much of the twentieth century
guided by their father’s moral testament: the Bata Shoe company was to be treated not as a
source of private wealth, but as a public trust, a means of improving living standards within the
community and providing customers with good value for their money. Promise was made to
pursue the entrepreneurial, social and humanitarian ideals of their father. The Baťa company was
apparently the first big enerprise to systematically utilise aircraft for company purposes,
including rapid transport of lesser personnel on business like delivery of maintenance men and
spares to a location where needed, originating the practice of business flying.
Jan Antonín Baťa
At the time of Tomáš's death, the Bata company employed 16,560 people, maintained 1,645
shops and 25 enterprises. Jan Baťa, following the plans laid down by Tomas Bata before his
death, expanded the company more than six times its original size throughout Czechoslovakia
and the world. Plants in Britain, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Kenya, Canada and the
United States, followed in the decade. In India, Batanagar was settled near Calcutta and
accounted from the late 1930s nearly 7500 Batamen. The Bata model fitted anywhere, creating,
for example, canteens for vegetarians in India and respecting the caste system. In exchange, the
demands on workers were as strong as in Europe: "Be courageous. The best in the world is not
good enough for us. Loyalty gives us prosperity & happiness. Work is a moral necessity!"
As of 1934, the firm owned 300 stores in North America, a thousand in Asia, more than 4,000 in
Europe. In 1938, the Group employed just over 65,000 people worldwide, including 36% outside
Czechoslovakia and had stakes in the tanning, agriculture, newspaper publishing, railway and air
transport, textile production, coal mining and aviation realms.

6. Bata-villes
Company policy initiated under Tomas Baťa was to set up villages around the factories for the
workers and to supply schools and welfare. These villages include Batadorp in the Netherlands,
Baťovany (present-day Partizánske) and Svit in Slovakia, Baťov (now Bahňák, part of
Otrokovice) in the Czech Republic, Borovo-Bata (now Borovo Naselje, part of Vukovar in
Croatia then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Bata Park in Möhlin, Switzerland, Bataville in
Lorraine, France, Batawa in Canada, East Tilbury[1] in Essex, England, Batapur in Pakistan and
Batanagar and Bataganj in India. There was also a factory in Belcamp, Maryland, USA,
northeast of Baltimore on U.S. Route 40 in Harford County.[2]
The British "Bata-ville" in East Tilbury inspired the documentary film Bata-ville: We Are Not
Afraid of the Future.[3]
World War II
Just before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Bata helped re-post his Jewish employees
to branches of his firm all over the world.[4][5] Germany occupied the remaining part of pre-war
Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939; Jan Antonín Baťa then spent a short time in jail but was then
able to leave the country with his family. Jan Antonín Baťa stayed in the Americas from 1939 –
1940, but when America entered the war, he felt it would be safer for his co-workers and their
families back in occupied Czechoslovakia if he left the United States. He was put on British and
US black list. He tried to save as much as possible of the business, submitting to the plans of
Germany as well as financially supporting the Czechoslovak Government- in-Exile led by Edvard
Beneš.
At occupied Europe a Bata shoe factory was connected to the concentration camp Auschwitz-
Birkenau.[6] The first slave labour efforts in Auschwitz involved the Bata shoe factory.[7] In 1942
a small camp was established to support the Bata shoe factory at Chełmek with Jewish slave
labourers.[8]
Post-war
Bata International Centre 1965-2004
Tomas' son Thomas manager of the buying department of the English Bata Company was unable
to return until after the war. He was sent to Canada by his uncle Jan, to become the Vice
President of the Bata Import and Export Company of Canada, which was founded in a company

7. town named Batawa, opened in 1939. Foreign subsidiaries were separated from the mother
company, and ownership of plants in Bohemia and Moravia was transferred to another member
of the family.
After World War II, governments in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Yugoslavia
confiscated and nationalized Bata factories, stripping Bata of its Eastern European assets. From
its new base in Canada, the company gradually rebuilt itself, expanding into new markets
throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Rather than organizing these new
operations in a highly centralized structure, Bata established a confederation of autonomous units
that could be more responsive to new markets in developing countries.
In 1964, the Bata Shoe Organisation moved their headquarters to Toronto, Canada — and in
1965 moved again, into an ultra-modern building, the Bata International Centre. The building,
located on Wynford Drive, in suburban North York was designed by architect John B. Parkin.
Czechoslovakia after 1989
After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, Thomas J. Baťa arrived as soon as December
1989. The Czechoslovak government offered him the opportunity to invest in the ailing
government-owned Svit shoe company. Since companies nationalised before 1948 were not
returned to their original owners, the state continued to own Svit and privatised it during voucher
privatisation in Czechoslovakia. Svit's failure to compete in the free market led to decline, and in
2000 Svit went bankrupt.
Present
After the global economic changes of the 1990s, the company closed a number of its
manufacturing factories in developed countries and focused on expanding retail business. Bata
moved out of Canada in several steps. In 2000, it closed its Batawa factory. In 2001, it closed its
Bata retail stores, retaining its "Athletes World" retail chain. In 2004, the Bata headquarters were
moved to Lausanne, Switzerland and leadership was transferred to Thomas G. Bata, grandson of
Tomáš Baťa. The Bata headquarters building in Toronto was vacated and eventually demolished.
In 2007, the Athletes World chain was sold, ending Bata retail operations in Canada.[9] As of
2013, Bata maintains the headquarters for its "Power" brand of footwear in Toronto. The Bata
Shoe Museum, founded by Sonja Bata, and operated by a charitable foundation, is also located in
Toronto.
Although no longer chairman of the company, the elder Mr. Bata remained active in its
operations and carried business cards listing his title as “chief shoe salesman.” In 2008, Thomas
John Bata died at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto at the age of 93.
Bata estimates that it serves more than 1 million customers per day, employing over 30,000
people,[10] operates more than 5,000 retail stores, manages 27 production facilities and a retail
presence in over 90 countries.
Bata brands

8. Bata Store Wenceslas Square in Prague, the Czech Republic - 2005
 Bata (Baťa in the Czech Republic)
 Bata Comfit (comfort shoes)
 Ambassador (classic men's shoes)
 North Star (urban Shoes)
 Weinbrenner (premium outdoor shoes)
 Marie Claire (women's shoes)
 SunDrops (women's shoes)
 Bubblegummers (children's shoes)
 Baby Bubbles (children's shoes)
 Safari (desert shoes)
 Power (athletic shoes)
 Patapata (flip flops)
 Toughees (school shoes)
 Verlon (school shoes)
 Teener (school shoes)
 Bata Industrials (work & safety footwear)