3 ms·
I don't see how anything of what you said is incompatible with the article. the unions got 10 hours, probably wanted better but that's all they could negotiate.
by weaksauce 4y ago
I don't see how anything of what you said is incompatible with the article. the unions got 10 hours, probably wanted better but that's all they could negotiate. ford wanted the most profit he could get and he found that through 8 hour work days it would be the most profitable for him. he, of course like much of the capitalist class(of course not all but most of the ultra-wealthy capital owners are sociopaths), didn't care that much about workers.
- vidarh 4y agoThe article says "The first demand of organized labor was 10 hours - the 10-hour movement. " This is at best wildly misleading. The first demands for 10 hours was not for 10 hours labour, but for 8 hours work broken up with 2 hours for meals, and that dates back to the late 1700's. And the demands for the 8 hour day then became prominent at a time where 12, 14 or even 16 hours, and 6 day work weeks was still not uncommon. It then implies that the 8 hour work day then suddenly came about after "businesses begin studying how to increase worker productivity. And they start to find a downside to even the 10-hour day." But by the time Ford made his change, it had been one of the key rallying cries of organised labour had been demanding for a century, and Owen had tried it at New Lanark a century before, and Ford was by no means the first, just one of the most high profile. It's a common trend in the US of trying to write unions out of the history of the eight hour day. People died fighting for the eight hour day. Pinkerton - who to this day are involved in anti-union efforts - and police more than once shot workers demonstrating for it.