The $5-a-day revolution
After the successes of the Model T and moving assembly line, Henry Ford shook the world further with an announcement that he would pay his workers $5 a day. It was January 1904 when he made this announcement. It doubled the pay of the average autoworker and even shortened the workday from 9 hours to 8. After this announcement, thousands of workers overflowed Ford employment offices in Detroit. This changed manufacturing forever as other companies had to do similar to compete. In effect, this lead to the intense growth of the American middle class.
|