Hacker News Reader

Comment by yomritoyj | Hacker News Reader

It is strange that the author attributes the eight-hour workday to Henry Ford's business strategy. It had been a demand raised by workers themselves from much earlier: “Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

View on HN

Exactly. This article needs some better research. The real history of the eight-hour work day is intertwined with the history of worker's movements beginning in the mid 1800's. Ford was nothing more than an opportunistic Capitalist (hint: they all are). If you're interested in this subject, I suggest learning about the NLU, the Knights of Labor, August Spies, Haymarket, etc.

The Eight Hours Monument stands opposite the Trades Hall in Melbourne: http://www.thecollectormm.com.au/gallery/photography/City/sl...

Yeah, shame that for most people the time they need for eating, household chores and commute cut only into the recreation/rest hours, and often do so enough that there's very little recreation left.

That's actually a contemporary problem. Back then, only men would work a full day; women would deal with household chores and preparing food, so when a man came home, in most cases he wouldn't literally raise a finger for 8 hours (except maybe to get some coal or logs). Also commuting was non-existent, people lived close to factories in most cases.

The truth is that, when it comes to work arrangement, we failed to keep up the struggle: we now work more (in productivity terms) and for less pay than we did in the XIX century.

I think he was attributing the 5 day working week to Ford rather then the hours/day. 8/8/8 could result in a 48 hour week if you work six days, as many factory workers used to.

But at that time it was relatively rare. Moving to an 8 hour day and only 5 days a week was unheard of at companies as large as Ford.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com