Worker turnover at his Highland Park plant reached 370 percent in 1913.
On December 1, 1913, the moving assembly line began full operation at Ford Motor Company's Highland Park plant in Michigan. The innovation cut the time to assemble a Model T from over twelve hours to approximately ninety-three minutes. It also made workers miserable.1
Labor turnover at Highland Park reached 370 percent that year. Ford needed to hire more than 52,000 workers to maintain a workforce of roughly 14,000. For every position in the plant, the company hired nearly four men, hoping one would stay longer than a few weeks.2
On January 5, 1914, Ford announced the five-dollar day, more than doubling the previous rate of $2.34 for a nine-hour shift. The move was headline news across the country. Thousands of job seekers flooded Highland Park. The company's chief of security turned fire hoses on crowds in subzero weather, and they came back.3
The wage came with conditions. Ford established a Sociological Department whose investigators visited workers' homes to ensure they met company standards for "clean living." Employees had to open savings accounts, demonstrate financial discipline, and submit to inspections of their domestic arrangements. Roughly $2.66 of the five-dollar wage was contingent on passing these evaluations.4
Ford's basic approach, deskilling labor, raising wages to compensate for monotony, and extending company oversight into workers' private lives, became a template for industrial management in the twentieth century. The assembly line separated planning from execution. Workers performed single tasks at a pace set by the line, not by themselves.5
The Ford English School, established in 1914, taught immigrant workers to read, write, and speak English. At graduation ceremonies, students wearing clothing from their native countries descended into a large "American Melting Pot" and emerged wearing identical suits, waving American flags.6