On this day in 1926: Ford workers get 40-hour week
Henry Ford: “It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either ‘lost time’ or a class privilege.”
On 1 May 1926, the Ford Motor Company became 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 labour policies before. In early 1914, against a backdrop of widespread unemployment and increasing labour 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 and building a sense of company loyalty and pride among Ford’s workers.
Manufacturers all over the country, and the world, soon followed Ford’s lead, and the Monday-to-Friday workweek became standard practice.
