The emerging economy is opening up new ways to reconnect workers to their work and the profits from their work.
One of the most striking blind spots in our collective angst over the lack of jobs is our apparent disinterest in the nature of work and how work creates value. This disinterest is reflected in a number of conventional assumptions.
One is the constant shedding of tears over the loss of mind-numbing manufacturing jobs. I doubt a single one of the innumerable pundits decrying the loss of “good manufacturing jobs” spent even one shift in an actual assembly line. There is a reason Henry Ford had to pay the then-astronomical salary of $5 per day to his assembly-line workers: the work was so physically demanding and boring that workers quit after a single shift. The only incentive that would keep people doing such hellish work day in, day out, was a big paycheck.
Henry Ford’s $5-a-Day Revolution
Â
After the success of the moving assembly line, Henry Ford had another transformative idea: in January 1914, he startled the world by announcing that Ford Motor Company would pay $5 a day to its workers. The pay increase would also be accompanied by a shorter workday (from nine to eight hours). While this rate didn’t automatically apply to every worker, it more than doubled the average autoworker’s wage.Â
While Henry’s primary objective was to reduce worker attrition–labor turnover from monotonous assembly line work was high–newspapers from all over the world reported the story as an extraordinary gesture of goodwill.
