The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1914-01-23
TO|LERS TO SHARE
Ford Motor Company Employees
to Get 100000 Dividend.
MINIMUM WAGE SIS A DAY.
Bonus to Be Added to the Pay Checks.
Foremen of Departments Have No
Power of Discharge-Movemen In
Interest of Social Justice.

Foremen OF Departments Have NO
Power of Discharge-Movemen In
| Interest of Social Justice.
| Henry Ford. head of the Ford Mo.
tor company of Detroit, Acently an
nounced a most remarkable business
move. In brief it is:
To give. to the employees of the com
pany $10,0O0,000 of the profits of the
1914 business. the payments to be
made semimonthly and added to the
pay checks.
To run the factory continuously in
stead of only eighteen hours a day,
| giving employment to several thou
sand more men by employing three
shifts Of eight hours each instead of
only two nine hour shifts.
To establish minimum wage scale
/ of $5 per day. Even the boy who
sweeps up the floors will get that much.
Before any man in any department
of the company who does not seem to
be doing good work shall be discharg-
ed, an opportunity will be given to him
TO try to make good in every other de
partment. No man shall be discharged
except for proved unfaithfulness or ir-
remediable inetficiency.
About 10 per cent of the employees,
boys and women, will not be affected
by the profit sharing. Those among
them who are supporting families,
however. will have share similar to
the men of more than twenty-five
years of age
In all, about 26,O00 employees will be
affected. Fifteen thousand are now at
work in the Detroit factories. -Four
thousand more will be added by the in
stitution of the eight hour shift. The
other 1000 employees are scattered all
over the world in the Ford branches.
They will share the same as the De
troit employees.
Personal statements were made by
Henry Ford and James Couzens treas
urer OF the company.
1T is our belief" said Mr.. Couzens,
that social justice begins at home.
We want those who have helped us to
produce this great institution and are
helping to maintain 1t to share our
prosperity. We want them to have
present profits and future prospects.
Thrift and good service and sobriety,
all will be enforced and recognized
Mr. Ford laid emphasis on the fact
that he did not consider his profit shar-
Ing plan as work of philanthropy.
The increase in pay which our EN-
ployees will receive is neither charity
nor wages. 1t is simply profit sharing.
In a way it is piece of efficiency en-
gineering too. We expect to get bet
ter work, more efficient work, as one
result And that is one reason why
we decided to make the distribution
now-in estimated profits for the year
to come rather than in a mere promise
of increase at the end of the year
When you have given a man some
thing, you know. then you can talk to
him. You have a basis to go on.
Amy one may put similar plan into
operation. There is nothing new about
profit sharing. 1t can be done in pro
manufacturer When you come to look
at 1t, what we have done is not sc
very big. 1t looks big in the aggre
gate, but you must remember that the
division applies to more than 30O0t
} persons, and the individual increase
will not be large. The plan applies
you see, not only to the Detroit fac
tory, but to our factories and assem-
bling plants all over the world.
When he was asked how the floor
sweepers and men employed in like
capacities could earn the minimum
wage of So FOR an eight hour day
which they are to receive under the
new plan, Mr.. Ford replied:
''They are not floor sweepers long
They begin at that, perhaps, but we
have a special department which
teaches them in two weeks TO make
some particular portion of the finished
: machine. They thus become mechan
les. In two weeks they are specialists
for us. If they do not succeed al
first we try them again in some other
department until either we find wha
they can do or find that they are hope
lessly inefficient
"The increase applies to all wage
earners as distinguished from salariet
1
raised about making the minimum fol
women less than that Of men. Th,
proportionate wage in this regard viii
not differ from the present rate. Oul
present minimum for women is $40 {
month. No girl is hired for less thar
: that Many are making $50 and $7C
or more. Under the new plan womel
Z will share with men in the increase
proportionately- that in the cas-
J of women with large families depend
! ent upon them the minimum will be s.
a day.
u mo man will be discharged, if w
can help it, except for unfaithfulnes
or inefficiency No foreman in the Fore
) company has the power to discharge
man. He may send him out of his de
> partment If he does not make good
The man is then sent to our 'clearini
house. covering all the departments
: and is tried repeatedly in other worl
e until we find the job he is suited fol-
n provided he is honestly trying to ren
q der good service"