Henry Ford and the 40 Hour Work Week

By Nicholas Livick

Henry Ford was a jack-ass opportunist. Here's an article I wrote in 2019, it's worth noting, In 1914, Henry Ford announced a minimum five dollar salary for all elegible employees working eight-hour days.

So yes, everyone boo this man

We're not taught real labor history in school. We're taught the pro-business history where boss man is always the good guy, Henry was anything but.

"I could not possibly do the same thing day in and day out but to other minds, perhaps, I might say to the majority of minds, repetitive operations hold no terrors. In fact, to some minds thought is absolutely appalling. The average worker, I'm sorry to say, wants a job where they don't have to think."--Henry Ford

So why Did Ford offer the 5 dollar day?

Turn over rate was high and costly. Turnover rate at Ford was 370% in the 1913s, each day averaging 10.5% by 1928 5% quit every month.

Why was turnover high? Jobs were readily available, work was brutal, management was horrible.

Management was oppressive and had contempt for its workforce. Ford management described their workers as 'animate machines' who were trained to do their work like a 'marvelous engine'. Or as a 10 year veteran remarked, 'workers cease to be human beings the moment they enter the gates of the shop. They become automatons and cease to think. They move their arms spontaneously too and fro stopping only long enough to eat in order to keep the human machine in working order for the next 4 hours of exploitation. Many healthy workers have gone to work for Fords and have come out human wrecks.' An author of the time after visiting a plant published a 1929 essay and said, 'no where in the world did men seem so automatized, submissive and monotonous.'

1914 Ford annouced his 5 dollar a day.

The new wage structure consisted of two parts: every worker continue to get their base pay and if they qualified for 'profitsharing', as Ford called it, their wage would rise to 5 dollars.

From a pro business view it was great! Ford got his pick of the workforce, absenteeism dropped and Ford cranked out more cars per dollar paid than any other automaker.

Now for the part they dont want you to know:

In 1914 Ford also created the Sociological Department staffed with 150 investigators who's job was to investigate workers to see if their lifestyles would qualify them for the 5 dollar day. They would call on workers and spouses in the home to come and inspect and photograph their homes and their contents. The investigators were looking for answers to a long list of questions including: martial status, nationality, religion, citizenship, home ownership, health, recreation, debt and savings. A Ford worker remarked, 'It was kind of a funny idea in a free state.

But how exactly did workers qualify for Fords 'profit sharing'?(5 dollar day)

Just some of the asinine requirements:

Ford required a min age of 21 years as well as a 6 month residency in Detroit FOLLOWED by an additional 6 months of probationary period in the plant.

Young men were warned they would not be able to spend their new found riches on 'riotous living', whatever that vague statement might mean.

Female workers and office workers were EXCLUDED. After 2 years they were included.

It was entirely possible to still work side by side on the same job and earn different wages due to a Formans favoritism.

Ford workers could not rent out a room to another man in their home, a common process at the time, because Ford saw it as detrimental to Marriage.

Ford workers were also disqualified for the wage on grounds of harmful habits such as: excessive drinking, gambling or any malicious practice derogatory to good physical manhood or moral character.

Fords Sociological Department also distributed booklets with titles like 'Helpful tips and advice to employees' that urged cleanliness, raising of vegetable gardens, proper care and rearing of children, thrift, crude in spending and purchase of life and fire insurance.

A worker who failed to meet Fords standards was given 6 months to come into compliance or they were fired.

Management became disillusioned with the results and abandoned the program after a few years and turned to coercive action.

This is where Fords Service Department comes into existence in the 1920s. The service department was a private army thinly disguised as a plant protection force. They enforced an oppressive set of plant rules. Employees were kept under constant surveillance, bathrooms were checked to prevent people from lingering, no smoking was permitted, employees were forbidden to sit in the plant and they couldn't talk on the job about matters that didn't pertain to work. Ford workers had to master the art of ventriloquism to talk to each other at work.

This oppressive, terrible, demeaning work environment was only removed after the UAW came into existence and successfully unionized Ford.

Yes, Ford created the 5 hour day and Capitalism and Competition allowed him to exploit and submit his workers to a humiliating process that combed through every aspect of their personal life. Leading to an even more oppressive regime called the Service Department.

Our union came in and said: workers deserve dignity, respect and rights in the workplace. Workers deserve a decent wage with decent benefits and paid time off. They deserve to have seniority rights so management couldn't play favorites any more. Then they set out to build the middle class of this nation fighting for workers rights everywhere and raising the wages for millions of people across this nation.

Capitalism and Competition didn't do that.

The UAW and unions did.