Company
ActiveFord Motor Company
Dearborn · Since 1903
Still independent, and still controlled by the Ford family through a special class of stock.
Henry Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903. The Model T, introduced in 1908, was the product. The moving assembly line at Highland Park, running by 1913, was the organization of work. A chassis that had taken twelve hours moved in ninety minutes because the men stood still and the work came to them.
In 1914 Ford announced five dollars for an eight-hour day, roughly double the going rate. The line had pushed turnover so high that training was eating the savings. The wage was a production decision. It was also high enough to become a national fact about what a factory job could pay.
The line and the man
Jobs were divided until a worker repeated one motion. The skill left the individual and entered the tool and the sequence. Ford's Sociological Department then visited workers' homes to see if they were living in a way the company approved of, a piece of welfare and intrusion that did not last but showed how far an employer thought the wage reached. Skilled toolmakers and designers remained. They were fewer, and they were upstream of the line.
Still a family company
Ford is still independent. The family holds a special class of stock that keeps control without owning most of the shares. The Rouge complex is still in Dearborn. The work is no longer a Model T every few seconds by unassisted hands. Robots weld. People still tend the line, and the argument about what they are owed for standing there has not ended.
The work it organized
- Assembler
- Toolmaker
- Time-study clerk
- Line supervisor
On the timeline
Related
- General MotorsActive