Speaker 1: Pushkin. One late afternoon in June nineteen twenty eight, the
Speaker 1: sixty two year old man from Kansas, Paul Starrett, was
Speaker 1: leaving an elegant private office high up in Manhattan's built
Speaker 1: Moore Hotel. He ran a construction company with his brothers
Speaker 1: and had just pitched for their largest contract yet. It
Speaker 1: was a building on a site just a few blocks
Speaker 1: away that would make or break their company's fortunes. Starrett
Speaker 1: was a handsome man, always dressed in the latest trim suits,
Speaker 1: but he didn't smile much. He had suffered from periods
Speaker 1: of depression for years, and on this day was especially acute.
Speaker 1: That wasn't because he had lost out on the contract.
Speaker 1: It was because he had a sinking feeling he was
Speaker 1: going to win it. Starrett was embarrassed by his depression,
Speaker 1: this sadness that came over him in overwhelming waves. What
Speaker 1: he loved was, as he put it, the practical machinery
Speaker 1: of architecture, turning drawings and plans into reality. As a
Speaker 1: young man in Chicago, he'd use his lunch breaks to
Speaker 1: watch the world's first skyscrapers going up. In the years
Speaker 1: since then, he and his brothers had created their own
Speaker 1: company building ever larger hotels and office buildings. This, however,
Speaker 1: would surpass them all. If everything went according to plan,
Speaker 1: it would be the tallest building on the fast changing
Speaker 1: Manhattan skyline, and that meant it would be the tallest
Speaker 1: building in the world, with all the associated money and prestige.
Speaker 1: But would everything go according to plan, That could hardly
Speaker 1: be guaranteed. Starrett's new project would have a bigger workforce
Speaker 1: than any he and his brothers had ever run. He
Speaker 1: couldn't know them all, and if the workers were obstreperous
Speaker 1: or the four men weren't committed, he'd be sunk. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just the complexities of the workforce that were bothering him.
Speaker 1: There was something else too. Enormous steel framed buildings generally
Speaker 1: took three or four years to complete, and they always
Speaker 1: had to be able to handle last minute changes. The
Speaker 1: deadline on this one just thirteen months. I'm Tim Harford,
Speaker 1: and you're listening to cautionary tales. Paul Starrett was worried
Speaker 1: by the same thing that would worry any construction manager.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties, across the United States, labor relations
Speaker 1: were rough. There had been tens of thousands of strikes
Speaker 1: in the decades when he was establishing his business in
Speaker 1: oil construction, steel coal. Some ended peacefully, but many did not.
Speaker 1: Owners hired strike breakers and often armed thugs. There were
Speaker 1: shootings and arbitrary mass arrests in coal mines in Virginia,
Speaker 1: in Rockefeller's oil fields in Pennsylvania and further west. Troops
Speaker 1: and those are armed thugs would use their superior weaponry
Speaker 1: to fire into crowds tame. Governors and judges would support them.
Speaker 1: Workers where possible, fought back. The underlying issue was one
Speaker 1: of fairness. Who got to determine what fairness is and how,
Speaker 1: if at all, it could be used to help organizations operate.
Speaker 1: This episode is the second in our four part series
Speaker 1: on that topic, following my friend David Badana's his excellent
Speaker 1: book The Art of Fairness, The Power of Decency in
Speaker 1: a World Turned Mean. The most important labour struggle Paul
Speaker 1: Starrett had experienced, the one that seemed to loom largest
Speaker 1: in memory, had come when he was a young man,
Speaker 1: still just in his twenties. This was the famous Pullman
Speaker 1: Strike of eighteen ninety four. Up until that year, George S.
Speaker 1: Pullman was revered in high circles across America for building
Speaker 1: one of the nation's largest corporations. The Pullman Company dominated
Speaker 1: the market for luxury train compartments in America and was
Speaker 1: as powerful as Apple or Google today. It made Pullman
Speaker 1: one of the wealthiest men in the United States, mansions
Speaker 1: in Chicago and elsewhere, a regular guest at the White House.
Speaker 1: He'd also created an entire city for his employees on
Speaker 1: four thousand acres of land a few miles south of Chicago.
Speaker 1: His publicists said he'd done this out of benevolence, but
Speaker 1: he instructed his accountants to squeeze money from the residents.
Speaker 1: They couldn't buy their homes, only rent, and Pullman was
Speaker 1: the only landlord in town. Food could only be bought
Speaker 1: from the company stores, water and gas from the company
Speaker 1: pipes at a hefty markup. It was a complete monopoly,
Speaker 1: which he abused for financial gain as much as possible.
Speaker 1: The city had street after street of small apartments designed
Speaker 1: for social control. Children had to go to the company schools,
Speaker 1: and when Pullman didn't like the theology of the main
Speaker 1: local church, he closed it down. No newspapers were allowed,
Speaker 1: or public speeches or town meetings of any sort. Company
Speaker 1: representatives could enter any of these homes Pullman rented at
Speaker 1: any time to inspect whatever they saw fit with due modesty.
Speaker 1: He named this utopia Pullman, Illinois. His own family would
Speaker 1: never spend time in such a place. His twin boys,
Speaker 1: age nineteen, showed no signs of any greater social consideration
Speaker 1: than their father. They were known for mockingly riding around
Speaker 1: Chicago in cabs filled with champagne bottles. At one point,
Speaker 1: one of them nearly killed a newsborer hurtling along fast
Speaker 1: when drunk. Paul Starrett was in his twenties then and
Speaker 1: living in Chicago, just a few miles up from Pullman, Illinois.
Speaker 1: He knew about Pullman's twin sons. Everyone did. One person
Speaker 1: who did live in Pullman City was a young seamstress
Speaker 1: named Jenny Curtis. Curtis had a friendly look and round face,
Speaker 1: shortish hair, which she tied back in a bun. With
Speaker 1: her low income, she could only afford simple, dark cotton blouses,
Speaker 1: but she liked ones with neat pin tuck folds running
Speaker 1: down the front. Jenny Curtis would play an important part
Speaker 1: in the strike that Starret would still ponder decades later,
Speaker 1: as he tried to reshape the Manhattan Skyline. She was
Speaker 1: the same age as Pullman's boys, just nineteen, but she
Speaker 1: had been working full time since fourteen, trying to pay
Speaker 1: off debts her father had incurred in his years working
Speaker 1: for Pullman when forced to buy everything at extortionate rates
Speaker 1: in Pullman's stores. In eighteen ninety three, an economic panic
Speaker 1: began to spread across the country. There were runs on
Speaker 1: the banks and industrial orders slowed. Since the railways were
Speaker 1: losing traffic, they began to cut down their orders, and
Speaker 1: now Pullman's own sales began to suffer. George Pullman realized
Speaker 1: he had to make some savings instead of cutting profits. However,
Speaker 1: he announced he was cutting wages by a third, and
Speaker 1: he was also going to keep rents and food prices
Speaker 1: the same. This meant his income stayed as high as ever,
Speaker 1: and it was his workers who took the hit. He
Speaker 1: didn't need their good will because he controlled everything they did.
Speaker 1: For those workers. This finally was a step too far.
Speaker 1: Her delegation got up the nerve to meet mister Pullman himself.
Speaker 1: Jenny Curtis was with them. She was getting a reputation
Speaker 1: as a great activist holding impromptu secret meetings among the
Speaker 1: girls in the stitching workshops. No need for secrecy now,
Speaker 1: Pullman said he was open to listening, that anyone who
Speaker 1: spoke up would be safe. Curtis used that opportunity. Later,
Speaker 1: she recalled what she'd told mister Pullman. We worked as
Speaker 1: hard as we possibly could, but the most experienced of
Speaker 1: us could only make eighty cents a day. Many a time,
Speaker 1: I've drawn nine or ten dollars for two weeks work,
Speaker 1: paid seven dollars for board, and given the company the
Speaker 1: remaining two or three on the rent. Wherever I didn't,
Speaker 1: I was insulted and almost put out by the clerk. That,
Speaker 1: she explained is what was so unjust. He was giving
Speaker 1: them less, but still paying full dividends to shareholders. Pullman
Speaker 1: listened quietly and again promised the group they'd be safe. Then,
Speaker 1: immediately after they had left, he had a quiet word
Speaker 1: with his foreman. The three most senior workers, along with
Speaker 1: miss Curtis, were to be fired the next day. With
Speaker 1: that done, he got on the train to New York,
Speaker 1: confidence that everything would return to normal soon, but nothing
Speaker 1: went as he assumed. Instead of giving in the rest
Speaker 1: of his factory hands went on strike. Jenny Curtis, still
Speaker 1: just nineteen, became their leader. Pullman still wasn't too worried.
Speaker 1: He was rich and his workers were poor. He could
Speaker 1: simply wait and starve them out. Curtis and the others
Speaker 1: knew they had to get the strike to spread, for
Speaker 1: other workers across the country to back them. She told
Speaker 1: the story to journalists and visiting politicians, and then a
Speaker 1: few weeks later had her biggest opportunity. The American Railway
Speaker 1: Union was having its convention and she was invited to speak.
Speaker 1: Get them on her side and the pullman workers would
Speaker 1: have a chance. But how to pull this off? She
Speaker 1: was a teenager, She'd had little schooling, she was physically slight,
Speaker 1: and her voice wasn't loud at all. Soon, though, it
Speaker 1: was time to get up on the wooden platform. A
Speaker 1: crowd of hundreds was before her, almost all men, almost
Speaker 1: all older. She knew they didn't know much about her
Speaker 1: and just saw an unexpected, diminutive figure on their stage.
Speaker 1: This would be daunting even for an experienced speaker. Yet
Speaker 1: everything depended on this moment, on getting the nationwide Railway
Speaker 1: Union on her side. There was only one thing to do.
Speaker 1: Cautionary tales will return alone on stage in front of
Speaker 1: hundreds of men, Young Jenny Curtis had a powerful weapon,
Speaker 1: the truth. She started by describing how Pullman ran the factories.
Speaker 1: She'd worked him since she was fourteen. Cotton thread handles
Speaker 1: best when moist, so windows in their workrooms were nailed
Speaker 1: shut to raise the humidity. In the one hundred degree
Speaker 1: fahrenheit's Chicago summers, it was awful when there were a
Speaker 1: lot of orders. Pullman pumped in extra scheme. Girl workers
Speaker 1: had been receiving seventeen cents an hour in the sewing units,
Speaker 1: now it was down to eleven cents. There was a
Speaker 1: constant danger from the massive industrial sewing machines used for
Speaker 1: the heavy carpets and drapes, and the Pullman cars. Supervisors
Speaker 1: had complete control over how they spoke to the young girls,
Speaker 1: or threatened them or punished them. The working day was
Speaker 1: eleven hours. She ended, Pullman owns the houses, the schoolhouse,
Speaker 1: and the churches of God in the town. He gave
Speaker 1: his wance humble name. This Mary war goes on and
Speaker 1: it will go on forever unless you stop it, end it,
Speaker 1: crush it. The convention delegates voted to back Jenny Curtis's
Speaker 1: Pullman workers almost immediately after her speech. All rail traffic
Speaker 1: out of Chicago stopped a few days more, and over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand rail workers nationwide had stopped work as well.
Speaker 1: It was the largest strike America had seen in this era,
Speaker 1: before lorries and airplanes. It almost closed the country down.
Speaker 1: Paul Starrett had a junior role in an architect's office then,
Speaker 1: watching the catastrophic impact of harsh labor practices on the
Speaker 1: world around him. Years later, as he pondered his skyscraper,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't forget George Pullman was watching two monitoring everything
Speaker 1: from his New York office. He didn't have popular opinion
Speaker 1: on his side, nor the local government, but he he
Speaker 1: had friends in high places, specifically the Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: the Justice Department. Under Pullman's guidance, the Attorney General delivered
Speaker 1: injunctions that declared the strikes illegal. Seven thousand troops were
Speaker 1: sent to Chicago, along with three thousand private enforces from
Speaker 1: the rail companies. Several dozen workers were shot dead there
Speaker 1: and at the other supporting strikes. No one could resist that,
Speaker 1: and the strike quickly ended. Everyone had to go back
Speaker 1: to work with the conditions he had decided on before
Speaker 1: their salaries would stay low, on their rents would be
Speaker 1: kept high. George Pullman had won, but the city of Pullman, Illinois,
Speaker 1: full of sullen, aggrieved workers, was never quite the same
Speaker 1: All that had happened when Paul Starrett was a young
Speaker 1: man in Chicago. His father had been a farmer and carpenter.
Speaker 1: When young Paul had worked on a ranch and as
Speaker 1: a stock boy in a hardware store. His empathy was
Speaker 1: with Jenny Curtis, not Pullman. He founded a construction company
Speaker 1: with his brothers, always keeping in mind the lesson of
Speaker 1: the strikes. Human beings shouldn't be treated as slaves. Others
Speaker 1: had drawn a different conclusion. Business leaders in steel and
Speaker 1: coal and other fields, even now in nineteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: had concluded from that huge strike that they had to
Speaker 1: be even harder than Pullman, stifling unions, keeping workers too
Speaker 1: humiliated or poorly paid to rise up. And with the
Speaker 1: task at hand building a big skyscraper, how else could
Speaker 1: the Starret brothers meet their tight deadline. There were big
Speaker 1: loans to be paid off, penalty clauses for failure. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of pressure. Starrett wrote that he felt
Speaker 1: lost and unhappy, detached from the activities that satisfy me,
Speaker 1: and yet none of the Starrett brothers wanted to go
Speaker 1: about the challenge the pullman way. Paul took the lead.
Speaker 1: He was gruff and short tempered on the outside, but
Speaker 1: there was more to him than that. Paul Starrett and
Speaker 1: his brothers spent a lot of time working out how
Speaker 1: to go forward, and what they finally resolved to do
Speaker 1: was what's called providing efficiency wages. The idea is that
Speaker 1: if you pay more and treat your workers better, then
Speaker 1: you'll get better, more motivated staff. And if they were
Speaker 1: going to get everything done in thirteen months, their need
Speaker 1: motivated staff. Other construction sites in New York tended to
Speaker 1: treat their workers awfully. Lots of high rise buildings were
Speaker 1: being constructed and workers were one hundred feet up from
Speaker 1: the ground for hours on end. Yet there were almost
Speaker 1: no safety laws, and sudden gusting winds were fatal. Workers
Speaker 1: were blown off or skidded on slippery wet beams in
Speaker 1: the rain. There were dozens hundreds of deaths, yet if
Speaker 1: workers refused to go up, they were fired. Wages throughout
Speaker 1: were low, and if anyone wanted a hot meal, they'd
Speaker 1: have to climb all the way down, find a diner,
Speaker 1: then climb all the way up again. Starrett was going
Speaker 1: to be different. He knew his wealth now gave him
Speaker 1: power over others, but he also knew it wasn't fair
Speaker 1: to treat them badly. His doctors had never been able
Speaker 1: to cure his depression, but his decency was one thing
Speaker 1: he could hold onto. So long as a project like
Speaker 1: this one was underway, it would help keep his inner
Speaker 1: darkness from getting worse. He and his brothers set out
Speaker 1: their new approach. From the beginning. There'd be at least
Speaker 1: one restaurant inside the structure as it was getting started,
Speaker 1: with schnitzels and tangy sauerkraut and fresh French fries and
Speaker 1: other good things. There were also smaller subsidized food stands
Speaker 1: every few floors higher up sandwiches and hot coffee, and
Speaker 1: this being the prohibition era, a pretty gruesome liquid called
Speaker 1: near beer. For gaps in the floor where lifts or
Speaker 1: hoists were being built. Starret had dedicated safety teams to
Speaker 1: keep barriers up to date, and most importantly, no one
Speaker 1: ever would have to go out when the wind was
Speaker 1: too high. Instead, they'd get the day off on full
Speaker 1: pay and full pay was twice what it was at
Speaker 1: other sites. Everyone would see that the Starrets kept their word,
Speaker 1: But there was one big problem. Efficiency wages sound so sensible,
Speaker 1: so kind. Progressive business schools talk about them all the time,
Speaker 1: but it's worth remembering what the physicist Enrico Fermi said
Speaker 1: when he was told there were likely to be hundreds
Speaker 1: of complex civilizations existing across our galaxy. Well where is everybody?
Speaker 1: He asked? The same question applies to efficiency wages. If
Speaker 1: there were such a good idea in theory, why didn't
Speaker 1: everyone pay efficiency wages to their staff? After all, Pullman
Speaker 1: did the opposite, and he was one of the richest
Speaker 1: men in America. Sheer force can work, at least for
Speaker 1: a while. If efficiency wages and kindness to all were
Speaker 1: the only things Starret knew, it wouldn't have worked. He
Speaker 1: had enough experience to recognize that along with the carrot
Speaker 1: the efficiency wages, Starret also needed a stick. Enter John Bowser,
Speaker 1: a world weary engineer originally from Canada. Bowser had left
Speaker 1: home when he was young, traveled and worked around the world.
Speaker 1: Had been on construction sites in Japan and across the
Speaker 1: United States. He knew every scam imaginable, and while he
Speaker 1: could be patient and tactful, he also had, as one
Speaker 1: historian delicately put it, a forceful personality. That's the mix
Speaker 1: you need to make generosity work on a complex new project.
Speaker 1: It's always tempting for a foreman to say they have
Speaker 1: one hundred people working away, while in fact they've only
Speaker 1: brought in ninety. They get to pocket the extra salary.
Speaker 1: To thwart such scams, Bowser high they had staff to
Speaker 1: physically visit each man on the site twice in the
Speaker 1: morning and twice in the afternoon. And since many of
Speaker 1: the workers were on beams dangling high above the ground,
Speaker 1: that was not an easy job. To keep inventory from
Speaker 1: walking away, Bowser created another department of accountants who'd also
Speaker 1: clamber through the building, keeping track of all the equipment
Speaker 1: that was scooting around the site on monorails, trolley cars,
Speaker 1: and steam engines. With all these inspections, cheating seemed unlikely
Speaker 1: to succeed. The workers realized this, but they also saw
Speaker 1: that they were still being treated respectfully, with nourishing food,
Speaker 1: safety aids and high pay. With Bowser's help, Starrett had
Speaker 1: created a site where it didn't pay to cheat, and importantly,
Speaker 1: where it did pay to put in an honest day's work.
Speaker 1: Thus reciprocity, the idea at the heart of paying efficiency wages,
Speaker 1: began to flourish. Everyone was with Starret, not against him.
Speaker 1: The first positive result was simple efficiency. When four men
Speaker 1: didn't fudge their numbers, you had more workers on site.
Speaker 1: And when inventry didn't get pilfered and stayed on site,
Speaker 1: no one had to wait around for the tools and
Speaker 1: materials they needed. Even better was the creativity. If you
Speaker 1: hate your boss, you're going to be sullen and resentful,
Speaker 1: but if you know, you're trusted and treated with respect.
Speaker 1: On most other sites, bricks were stacked on wheelbarrows, then
Speaker 1: pushed along robbling wooden gang plants to where they were needed.
Speaker 1: Workers on Starret site came up with a creative solution.
Speaker 1: They spontaneously suggested building a miniature railway line into the
Speaker 1: site instead, and then smaller railway lines on the actual
Speaker 1: floors under construction. Because thousands of bricks arrived in a
Speaker 1: single AI eight hour shift, this miniature railway sped construction
Speaker 1: along considerably. Building sites also tended to have high turnover rates,
Speaker 1: and as a result, they incurred hefty retraining costs too,
Speaker 1: But on Starret site, the workers didn't want to walk out,
Speaker 1: not with these wages and with the respect they felt
Speaker 1: from their employers. At its peak, the Starret Brothers Building
Speaker 1: was rising up at four and a half floors. Each week,
Speaker 1: five hundred trucks were arriving with materials at the site
Speaker 1: each day. Some of the steel beams that arrived were
Speaker 1: still warm, having been fabricated just days before. One innovation
Speaker 1: was especially noticeable from Afar. In most big construction projects,
Speaker 1: when large stones were placed on the outside for an
Speaker 1: attractive surface, expert craftsmen had to spend a long time
Speaker 1: moving the edges. Starrett's teams came up with a new idea.
Speaker 1: Why not just bolt thin metal panels over the joins.
Speaker 1: Then you could use stones still rough from the quarries.
Speaker 1: The result was an attractive exterior of shining stainless steel
Speaker 1: strips standing out from the gray limestone around them. But
Speaker 1: while the project seemed to be going well, Starrett was
Speaker 1: gazing watchfully across town to forty second Street, where a
Speaker 1: rival skyscraper was rising over the Manhattan skyline. Starrett, remember
Speaker 1: was aiming to build Manhattan's tallest skyscraper with all the
Speaker 1: prestige and money that meant for his clients. As far
Speaker 1: as he knew, his rival's building was going to be
Speaker 1: smaller than his. Nothing to worry about there, or was there.
Speaker 1: The competing skyscraper on forty Seconds was nearly complete while
Speaker 1: Starret's was still underway. He had assumed he'd surpass it,
Speaker 1: just like all the others when he was finally finished.
Speaker 1: But then something happened that meant this competitor's building was
Speaker 1: going to be taller. All Starrett's work compared to that
Speaker 1: would seem a failure. Cautionary tales would return. Paul Starrett
Speaker 1: had known a lot about this competitor, the automobile magnet
Speaker 1: Walter P. Chrysler, who was funding a building in his name.
Speaker 1: Mister Chrysler was a good Kansas boy, like Paul Starrett.
Speaker 1: After making his fortune in Detroit, he was not used
Speaker 1: to coming second. When he found out that Starrett's building,
Speaker 1: which had started construction after his, was going to be taller,
Speaker 1: he couldn't bear it, and so he concocted a scheme
Speaker 1: with his architects and construction chiefs. While everyone on the
Speaker 1: outside thought the Chrysler building was nearly done quietly secretly
Speaker 1: inside the empty top floors of their own building, where
Speaker 1: no one could see it. Chrysler's team had been constructing
Speaker 1: an enormous one one hundred and eighty five foot tall
Speaker 1: glass and metal structure. On one tremendous day, to the
Speaker 1: city's astonishment, they had it hoisted up through the top
Speaker 1: of the building to perch on top, making it taller
Speaker 1: than anything Starret had planned. That's when Starrett, John Bowser,
Speaker 1: and the rest of their team realized that their rival
Speaker 1: had stolen a march on them. Walter Chrysler relished his victory.
Speaker 1: He prepared ad campaigns which showed his majestic Chrysler building
Speaker 1: at the end of a long chain of world dominant buildings,
Speaker 1: at the start where the Pyramids of Egypt, then came
Speaker 1: Europe's great medieval cathedrals, then Paris's Eiffel Tower, and finally,
Speaker 1: tallest to them all, his great Chrysler Building in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Starrett's work in progress didn't even figure. The world press
Speaker 1: lapped the Chrysler building up, and the fact that Starret's
Speaker 1: enlightened management methods had made the project fast and efficient
Speaker 1: didn't seem to count for much. Starrett and his financiers
Speaker 1: didn't want to accept defeat. But what to do. You
Speaker 1: can't really start redesigning a giant skyscraper once everything is underway,
Speaker 1: The steel had already been ordered, the detailed construction schedule
Speaker 1: laid out. Changing one part of the building would mean
Speaker 1: changing a multitude of other connected parts, from the architect's
Speaker 1: plans and steel fabricators to truck deliveries and the schedules
Speaker 1: of thousands of workers. But they also couldn't really settle
Speaker 1: for being second. Winning in terms of speed meant nothing
Speaker 1: if they didn't also win in height. If they tried
Speaker 1: some little trick, the Chrysler building might just add a
Speaker 1: bigger spire. What Starret needed was a modification to their
Speaker 1: plans that was not only achievable, but was also so
Speaker 1: huge and so impressive that it would be untouchable. The
Speaker 1: records don't show who first came up with the answer.
Speaker 1: It probably emerged when all the top staff were convened
Speaker 1: in one of their frantic planning meetings, but it was
Speaker 1: an idea of genius. A mooring mast. In the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: aviation technology wasn't just propeller driven aeroplanes. It was also
Speaker 1: enormous lighter than air dridgibles zeppelins. These beer moths were
Speaker 1: hundreds of feet long, with elegant gondolas suspended beneath, where
Speaker 1: passengers could travel in the greatest of comfort. At the time,
Speaker 1: the zeppelins that arrived in New York had to dock
Speaker 1: out in Lakehurst, New Jersey, seventy five miles from the city.
Speaker 1: But what if they could be tethered to a majestic
Speaker 1: structure right in the center of Manhattan. It would be
Speaker 1: a boon for mankind and very nicely stick it to
Speaker 1: Chrysler too. Best of all, the architects could design it
Speaker 1: to be big enough that there was no way any
Speaker 1: future stunt by Chrysler could outdo them. They settled on
Speaker 1: two hundred feet. It was here that Starret and his
Speaker 1: team reaped the benefits of his workforce's high morale. There
Speaker 1: was much to do. Although construction had only just started
Speaker 1: on the building and the foundations were still being prepared,
Speaker 1: all the design and orders and work schedules had been
Speaker 1: set up. This meant that from the moment of Christless surprise,
Speaker 1: a very great deal had to change. Even while work
Speaker 1: continued on getting the site properly cleared and the equipment
Speaker 1: for the lower floors in place. For the new mast
Speaker 1: to be fitted, the top of the building needed to
Speaker 1: be altered. New structural steel had to be ordered, and
Speaker 1: the mast itself, complete with internal walkways, had to be designed,
Speaker 1: and the parts ordered, delivered and assembled. All of this
Speaker 1: would start at one thousand feet in the air and
Speaker 1: rise ever higher. Imagine if George Pullman had tried such
Speaker 1: an ambitious swerve in strategy after his oppressive tactics and
Speaker 1: murderous strike breaking, his company had lost nearly half a
Speaker 1: year of output. Skilled workers had quit, those who remained
Speaker 1: were sulking at best, mutinous at worst, especially as their
Speaker 1: working conditions deteriorated. Imagine if Pullman showed up at work
Speaker 1: and addressed his workforce asking for a big, creative, collaborative
Speaker 1: push together, they would have laughed him out of the
Speaker 1: factory or worse. After the strike and for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life, whenever George Pullman ventured out in Chicago,
Speaker 1: he had to be guarded by detectives armed with shotguns.
Speaker 1: When he died, his family were so afraid that former
Speaker 1: employees might desecrate his grave that his coffin was sealed
Speaker 1: into a triple reinforced block of steel and concrete. George
Speaker 1: Pullman had made a lot of enemies, No such problems
Speaker 1: for Paul Starrett. His workers were right behind him. He
Speaker 1: had been fair to them. There'd be fair to him.
Speaker 1: Not that Starrett was an angel. There was a slight
Speaker 1: bending of the truth involved in that airship mast. It
Speaker 1: was obviously impractical, more ornaments than utility. If a mighty
Speaker 1: airship filled with champagne and cocktail parties and piano music
Speaker 1: had actually tried to dock more than a thousand feet
Speaker 1: above the streets of Manhattan, there would be a few problems.
Speaker 1: First of all, the passengers would be a little less
Speaker 1: welcome than they might have imagined. Airships adjusted their height
Speaker 1: by letting out water, large volumes of it. Several hundred
Speaker 1: gallons would have to be splashed onto the Manhattan crowds
Speaker 1: watching them from below to get the height exactly right.
Speaker 1: Attaching the mooring ropes would also be difficult because of
Speaker 1: the winds at that height, all boosted by the skyscraper
Speaker 1: canyons across Manhattan. Then, if the bucking airship did get
Speaker 1: in position, the passengers, once they got off, wouldn't find
Speaker 1: a convenient lift waiting for them. The mast was too
Speaker 1: narrow for that. Instead, they'd had to climb down a
Speaker 1: ladder to get to the main floors of the building,
Speaker 1: where they could then take an elevator. It was in
Speaker 1: fact never used for passenger airship docking. At one point
Speaker 1: a government contact arranged for a smaller airship carrying post
Speaker 1: to offload a few leather packages of letters that way,
Speaker 1: but aside from a brief later visit by King Kong,
Speaker 1: that was it. New Yorkers didn't care. The building site's
Speaker 1: ethos meant everything got done, and within the thirteen month target,
Speaker 1: the journey from the luxurious offices in the Biltmore Hotel
Speaker 1: to the roar and welding and bolting on the building
Speaker 1: site was over. That unprecedented speed was just what their
Speaker 1: funders had wanted to get rents coming in so that
Speaker 1: the enormous loans for construction could be paid off quickly.
Speaker 1: This was something Pullman's resentful workers would never have pushed
Speaker 1: to succeed at. The good wages and conditions mixed with
Speaker 1: sensible auditing, had led to energetic work teams, far less cheating,
Speaker 1: greater innovation, and the ability to adapt fast when mister
Speaker 1: Chrysler's efforts to outscale were sprung on them even when
Speaker 1: they were underway. The result made star At famous because
Speaker 1: of his skill, his benevolence, and his hard nosed Canadian
Speaker 1: construction superintendent. When Starret declared his vast skyscraper complete, it
Speaker 1: was indeed the tallest building in the world, and it
Speaker 1: had a name to match, the Empire State Building. Starret
Speaker 1: still didn't smile much and always looked pretty grumpy when
Speaker 1: he snapped out his decisions. But that didn't matter. You
Speaker 1: don't have to love someone to respect them. You don't
Speaker 1: even have to like them. If someone's fair and you
Speaker 1: realize they're competent, that's enough. That's how to make efficiency
Speaker 1: wages work. Be fair, be generous, but audit. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: this episode is based on my friend David Badonnas's book
Speaker 1: The Art of Fairness. That's where I learned about Paul's
Speaker 1: Tarrett and the Empire State story. As David himself put.
Speaker 2: It, the ancient sage Hillel had a nice insight about
Speaker 2: all this. He was writing two thousand years ago. But
Speaker 2: he raised in essence were two linked questions. If I'm
Speaker 2: not for myself? Who is for me? But if I'm
Speaker 2: only for myself, what am I? The answer is that
Speaker 2: neither extreme will do. You will have to stand up
Speaker 2: for yourself. Otherwise in the real world you'll never get far.
Speaker 2: But if that's the only thing you do, if you're
Speaker 2: only for yourself, what kind of person are you? Staret
Speaker 2: Empire State Building shows what the middle path can achieve.
Speaker 1: You need the smarts to guard against cheats, but when
Speaker 1: you offer generosity, creative gratitude can come pouring back. Cautionary
Speaker 1: Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright.
Speaker 1: This mini series is based on David Bardanas's book The
Speaker 1: Art of Fairness, The Power of Decency in a World
Speaker 1: Turned Mean, and it was written with David Bandanas himself.
Speaker 1: For a full list of our sources, see the show
Speaker 1: notes at Timharford dot com. The show is produced by
Speaker 1: Alice Fines, with Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original
Speaker 1: music for the work of Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited
Speaker 1: the script. Cautionary Tales features the voice talents of Ben Crowe,
Speaker 1: Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Gemma Saunders, and Rufus Wright. The
Speaker 1: show Wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohen, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
Speaker 1: Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at ward Or Studios in
Speaker 1: London by Tom Gary. If you like the show, please
Speaker 1: remember to share, rate and review. It doesn't really make
Speaker 1: a difference to us and if you want to hear
Speaker 1: the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin Plus on
Speaker 1: the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot Fm,
Speaker 1: slash plus