On May 1, 1926, Ford Motor Company becomes one of the first companies in America to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week for workers in its automotive factories. The policy would be extended to Ford’s office workers the following August.
Henry Ford’s Detroit-based automobile company had broken ground in its labor policies before. In early 1914, against a backdrop of widespread unemployment and increasing labor unrest, Ford announced that it would pay its male factory workers a minimum wage of $5 per eight-hour day, upped from a previous rate of $2.34 for nine hours (the policy was adopted for female workers in 1916).
The news shocked many in the industry—at the time, $5 per day was nearly double what the average auto worker made—but turned out to be a stroke of brilliance, immediately boosting productivity along the assembly line and building a sense of company loyalty and pride among Ford’s workers.
The decision to reduce the workweek from six to five days had originally been made in 1922. According to an article published in The New York Times that March, Edsel Ford, Henry’s son and the company’s president, explained that “Every man needs more than one day a week for rest and recreation….The Ford Company always has sought to promote [an] ideal home life for its employees. We believe that in order to live properly every man should have more time to spend with his family.”
Henry Ford said of the decision: “It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either ‘lost time’ or a class privilege.” At Ford’s own admission, however, the five-day workweek was also instituted in order to increase productivity: Though workers’ time on the job had decreased, they were expected to expend more effort while they were there. Manufacturers all over the country, and the world, soon followed Ford’s lead, and the Monday-to-Friday workweek became standard practice.
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Henry Ford CREATED a market which had not existed when he paid his employees $5.00 per day when the average wage of the day was around $1.25 per day.
His premise was not entirely altruistic as assembly line work was monotonous; a way had to be found to retain employees, as well.
Of course, the wall street types and the banksters howled that Ford’s wage rates would destroy capitalism (as they knew it-those at the top reap all of the benefits while the proles are forced to live on a bare subsistence wage, due to the machinations of those at the top).
Guess what??
The OPPOSITE happened.
Henry Ford knew one of the basic tenets of a truly free, capitalistic society, that a well-paid work force would be able to participate and contribute to a strong economy, unlike what is taught in business schools today-that wages must be kept to a bare minimum and that the stockholder is king. Our free trade politicians have assisted the greedy wall street types and banksters in depressing wages on the promise of cheap foreign labor and products.
A good example of this is the negative criticism that Costco receives for paying its employees well above market wages. These same wall street types praise Wal-Mart for paying its employees barely subsistence wages while assisting them in filling out their public assistance (welfare) forms.
Any sane person KNOWS that in order for capitalism to work, employees need to make an adequate wage. Unfortunately, this premise does not exist in today’s business climate.
Henry Ford openly criticized those of the “tribe” for manipulating wall street and banksters to their own advantage, and was roundly (and unjustly) criticized for pointing out the TRUTH.
Catholic priest, Father Coughlin did the same thing and was punished by the Catholic church, despite his popularity and exposing the TRUTH of the American economy and the outsider internationalists that ran it . . . and STILL run it.
Our race to the bottom will not be without consequences. A great realignment is necessary (and is coming) . . .
COVID-19 is just what the internationalists ordered…to destroy small businesses and the economy.
Ford was brilliant and a true American patriot. Too bad there’s no equivalent today.
Ford also had one of the largest private goon squads who didn’t mind shooting into a crowd .