Improved Working Conditions
In his autobiography Henry Ford (1922) mentions several benefits of the assembly line including:
- Workers do no heavy lifting
- No stooping or bending over
- No special training required
- There are jobs that almost anyone can do
- Provided employment to immigrants.
The gains in productivity allowed Ford to increase worker pay from $1.50 per day to $5.00 per day once employees reached three years of service on the assembly line. Ford continued on to reduce the hourly work week while continuously lowering the Model T price. These goals appear altruistic; however, it has been argued that they were implemented by Ford in order to reduce high employee turnover: when the assembly line was introduced in 1913, it was discovered that “every time the company wanted to add 100 men to its factory personnel, it was necessary to hire 963” in order to counteract the natural distaste the assembly line seems to have inspired.
Read more about this topic: Assembly Line
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