Six Days Pay for Five Days Work

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HENRY FORD: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

"We have," Henry Ford said, "decided upon and at once put into effect through all the branches of our industries the five day week. Hereafter there will be no more work with us on Saturdays and Sundays. These will be free days, but the men, according to merit, will receive the same pay equivalent as for a full six day week. A day will continue to be eight hours, with no overtime."

And: "Does this mean," I asked, "that your present minimum wage of six dollars a day will become a fraction over seven dollars a day that is, the minimum for five days' work will still be thirty-six dollars, just as it was for six days?"

"We are now working out the wage schedules," answered Mr. Ford. " We have stopped thinking in terms of a minimum wage. That belongs to yesterday, before we quite knew what paying high wages meant. Now so few people get the minimum wage that we do not bother about it at all. We try to pay a man what he is worth and we are not inclined to keep a man who is not worth more than the minimum wage."

This was not covered in the government school, was it?