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N0KFQ > TODAY 02.05.11 00:20l 47 Lines 2096 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - May 1
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May 1, 1926:
Ford factory workers get 40-hour week
On this day in 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.
73, K.O. N0KFQ
Another old retired guy
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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