[Ford] Gives $10,000,000 To 26,000
Employees
Ford to Run Automobile Plant 24 Hours Daily in Profit-Sharing
Plan
MINIMUM WAGE $5 A DAY
No Employee to be Discharged Except for Unfaithfulness or
Hopeless Inefficiency
Special
to The New York Times
Detroit, Mich., Jan. 5. 1914 --
Henry Ford,[1]
head of the Ford Motor Company, announced today one of the most remarkable
business moves of his entire remarkable career. In brief it is:
To run the factory continuously instead of only eighteen
hours a day, giving employment to several thousand more men by employing three
shifts of eight hours each, instead of only two nine-hour shifts, as at
present.
To establish a minimum wage scale of $5 per day. Even the boy
who sweeps up the floors will get that much.
Before any man in any department of the company who does not
seem to be doing good work shall be discharged, an opportunity will be given to
him to try to make good in every other department. No man shall be discharged
except for proved unfaithfulness or irremediable inefficiency.
The
Ford Company's financial statement of Sept. 20, 1912, showed assets of
$20,815,785.63, and surplus of $14,745,095.57. One year later it showed assets
of $35,033,919.86 and surplus of $28,124,173.68. Dividends paid out during the
year, it is understood, aggregated $10,000,000. The indicated profits for the
year, therefore, were about $37,597,312. The company's capital stock authorized
and outstanding, is $2,000,000. There is no bond issue.
About 10 per cent of the employees, boys and women, will not
be affected by the profit sharing, but all will have the benefit of the $5
minimum wage. Those among them who are supporting families, however, will have
a share similar to the men of more than 22 years of age.
In all, about 26,000 employees will be affected. Fifteen
thousand now are at work in the Detroit factories. Four thousand more will be
added by the institution of the eight-hour shift. The other seven thousand
employees are scattered all over the world, in the Ford branches. They will
share the same as the Detroit employees.
Personal statements were made by Henry Ford and James
Couzens, Treasurer of the company, regarding the move.
"It
is our belief," said Mr. Couzens, "that social justice begins at
home. We want those who have helped us to produce this great institution and
are helping to maintain it to share our prosperity. We want them to have
present profits and future prospects. Thrift and good service and sobriety, all
will be enforced and recognized.
"Believing
as we do, that a division of our earnings between capital and labor is unequal,
we have sought a plan of relief suitable for our business. We do not feel sure
that it is the best, but we have felt impelled to make a start, and make it
now. We do not agree with those employers who declare, as did a recent writer
in a magazine in excusing himself for not practicing what he preached, that
'movement toward the bettering of society must be universal.' We think that one
concern can make a start and create an example for other employers. That is our
chief object."[4]
"If we are obliged," said Mr. Ford, "to lay
men off for want of sufficient work at any season we purpose to so plan our
year's work that the lay-off shall be in the harvest time, July, August, and
September,[5]
not in the Winter. We hope in such case to induce our men to respond to the
calls of the farmers for harvest hands, and not to lie idle and dissipate their
savings. We shall make it our business to get in touch with the farmers and to
induce our employees to answer calls for harvest help.
"No man will be discharged if we can help it, except
for unfaithfulness or inefficiency. No foreman in the Ford Company has the
power to discharge a man. He may send him out of his department if he does not
make good. The man is then sent to our 'clearing house,' covering all the
departments, and is tried repeatedly in other work, until we find the job he is
suited for, provided he is honestly trying to render good service."
OTHER HEADLINES
VVVVVVVVVVVVVV
OTHER HEADLINES
Thirty-Two
Lost On The Oklahoma: Eight
Saved from Oil Ship Which Buckled When Suspended Between Waves: Some Adrift in
Lifeboat: Crew From the Bavaria Rescued Exhausted Officers in a Gale Off Sandy
Hook: Wireless Brought Aid: Spanish Liner's Lifeboat Was Smashed in Going to
Rescue Before Bavaria's Arrival.
Flying
Made Safe; Wright Explains It: Inventor
Tells How His Stabilizer Balances Aeroplanes and Prevents
"Overcontrol."
Kaiser
Strips Heir of His Authority: Prince
Reduced to Subordinate Rank Owing to Telegram to Zabern Commander: Ready to
Order a Volley: Admission by Col. von Reuter -- Civilian Arrested for Laughing.
Garden
Removed From Mexican Post: British
Minister, Accused of Anti-American Tendencies, to Go to Brazil: Not Officially
Censured: But English Opinion Is That He Was Indiscreet -- No Successor Yet
Named: Garden Won't Admit It: Says He has not Received Notice -- Suggests
Forced Loans to Huerta.
Find
Corporation Check to N. E. Mack: State
Contractor Freely Tells of Contributions at Whitman's Graft Inquiry: Term
"Heeler" Defined: Otherwise a State Committeeman Useful in Getting
Contracts - - Doyle Paid to the G. O. P.
A
Hogarth Dies in Poverty: Descendant
of the Artist Lived for Many Years on Poor Relief.
Another
Haitian Revolt: Gen.
Zamor Takes Refuge in American Consulate at Cape Haitien.
Diving
Pool for Rutgers: Mrs.
Robert Balentine Presents it at the Cost of $20,000.
No
Chicago Subway Bids: Method
of Payment for $131,000,000 Job Fails to Interest Contractors.
Break
Deadlock By Force: Ashbury
Park Council Organizes with Aid of the Police.
Stove
Sets Child Aflame: Badly
Burned Despite Catholic Sisters' Vallant Efforts to Save.
Tear
Up Grade Crossing: City
Officials of Memphis Take Drastic Action After Accident.
Arrests
Bright's Disease: California
Physician Describes New Remedy and its Effects.
Army
Polo Player Dying: Lieut.
Armstrong Fractures His Skull in Cavalry Match.
Bridal
Gowns Go in Fire: Brooklyn
Man's Wife-to-Be Loses Trousseau in Ansonia, Conn.
Cardinal
Gibbon's Legacy: Will
Use for Education Large Sum Inherited from Miss Andrews.
Miss Wilson at Mardi Gras: President's
Daughter to Attend Twelfth Night Ball in New Orleans.
Mob
Thrashes Wife Beater: Her
Complaint Brings Chatisement to Father of Six.
Paterson
Theatre Burns: Firemen
Hurt in Fighting Flames -- Loss Put at $100,000.
Flatbush
Homes Burned: G.
H. Orton's Family Didn't Know Roof Was Blazing Overhead.
Cuts
Atlantic Rates: North
German Lloyd Announces reductions in Eastward Fares.
Report
on Burke Charges: Inquiry
Abroad Into Panama Commissary Purchases Completed
[1]
Henry Ford was 50 years old, and not all that different from a lot of other
successful businessmen, when he summoned the Detroit press corps to his
company’s offices on Monday, January 05, 1914. What he did that day made him a
household name... Mr. Ford announced that he was DOUBLING THE PAY of thousands of his employees, TO AT LEAST $5 A DAY.
$ 10,000,000.00
|
Total BONUS
|
26,000.
|
Total # of PERSONS
|
$ 384.62
|
Each PERSON
|
76.9
|
# of Days @ $5/Dy
|
15.4
|
# of Weeks @ $5/Dy
|
3.6
|
# of Months @ $5/Dy
|
[3]
The facts are that the 1914 style began in later 1913, perhaps as early as
August, at the Highland Park plant. Ford issued a letter on July 28, 1913,
announcing, “1914 prices effective August 1, 1913: Touring, $550; Runabout, $500; Town Car, $750.” The letter does not
indicate a “new” style, however.
[4]
“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved
your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers
the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police
forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry
that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire
someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now
look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great
idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social
contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes
along.” Elizabeth Warren - August 2011,
while contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate, former White House financial
reform adviser Elizabeth Warren gave a fiery defense of progressive economic
theory at an event in Andover, Massachusetts.
[5]
Historically the Model change at the Factory has always occurred in July an
daugust because of this.
