News, analysis and personal reflections on the markets & the financial sector

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

This Day in Wall Street History 1914: Ford gives minimum wage a big boost

On this day in 1914, the Ford Motor Company rolled out a series of initiatives targeted at improving the lives of its workers. Along with boosting the company's minimum wage to $5 per day, Ford also unveiled plans to trim its workday to eight hours.

Whatever the merits of these measures, they were something of a necessary corrective, designed to offset the potentially "dehumanizing" effects of Ford's recent move to perpetually operating mode of assembly-line production.

Though the company was now able to churn out 2,000 autos a day, the quicksilver pace took a severe toll on Ford's assembly-line workers.

Source: History.com

No comments: