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How Was Henry Ford Workers Treated During The 20th Century

972 Words4 Pages

Henry Ford did one of the most important things during the 20th century and that was to create the modern-day assembly line which not only cut time and costs on Ford vehicles specifically the Model T for Americans, but one thing people often forget is how the workers were treated during the early days of the Ford Motor Company. While The workers who operated the assembly line were not treated with the highest regards, The assembly line was created by Henry ford in 1913, he was the first to modernize the process and it has been utilized in some capacity by other manufacturing companies since its formation.
Henry Ford created Ford Motor Company on June 16th of 1903 “with only $28,000 paid-in capital, a dozen workmen, and an assembly plant on …show more content…

The workers were treated with the same regard as many other manufacturing plants during that era which would include minimal pay minimal safety requirements as well as they weren't allowed to form labor unions to enforce better working conditions for them and for generations to come. A newspaper clipping from the New York Times in 1923 explains the situation the best by saying “Several Ford workers who wore union buttons to work were forced to remove the buttons and that several were discharged.” (Samuel S. Marquis) this statement just goes to show that even though Henry Ford invented the five day work week as well as working 8 hours a day and the conditions in the Ford Motor Company factories were better than some of the other manufacturing facilities during the time workers were still unable to unionize in demand better conditions whether that be health, money, or job security they still had to fight for it. Samuel Marquis goes on to say in the New York Times news clipping that “It is estimated that Ford employs 120,000 persons, about 100 thousand of whom are production workers. Craft unions of the American federation of Labor are established among Ford skilled employees, but the Ford management has fought the CIO attempts to organize workers on assembly lines.” (Samuel S. Marquis) to make things even worse only the skilled workers had the OK from upper management to unionize but Ford Motor Company refuses to let the unskilled workers on the assembly lines unionize or even wear union buttons to

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