The Great Depression and World War II ushered in a new era of American politics with labor friendly Democrats led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt elected to power. The battle for the eight hour work week continued until the 1930s when the Industrial Recovery Act created maximum hours, minimum wage, and the full right to organize unions. The idea of a limited workday gained important footing. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) became law further moving power to workers. 1938-1940 saw the establishment of the Fair Labor Standard Act which federally mandated the forty hour work week providing protections and benefits for full time workers. Unions grew from oppressed dreamers to powerful shapers of industry during the twentieth …show more content…
century. The Industrial Workers of the World, American Federation of Labor (AFL), United Mine Workers, Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), United Steel Workers, and many other unions found their collective voices helping improve working conditions and change laws over decades by harnessing the greatest asset available; labor. Welfare Capitalism and Collective Bargaining Collide Laws and unions continued to alter the dynamic of work during the early and mid-twentieth century shifting power toward workers. The struggle for control over work centered on the debate between free market controls such as welfare capitalism versus collective bargaining approaches. Firms felt welfare capitalism allowed for tailored benefits and flexibility critical to their very survival. Workers frequently asserted collective bargaining provided the most effective representation of workers’ interests because unions provided robust guarantees from employers. Industrialists preferred scientific management and strove to create an efficient workplace providing welfare capitalism to employees while fiercely resisting collective bargaining.
Henry Ford, an anti-union industrialist in the automobile industry, exemplified welfare capitalism in 1926 by declaring not only an eight hour day but a five day work week in his factories. Ford voiced what many workers felt when he said, “It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege.” Railroad developer, Jay Gould, also felt welfare capitalism would provide balance saying “if capital and labor were let alone, they will mutually regulate each …show more content…
other.” Many workers rejected welfare capitalism citing harsh conditions and insufficient guarantees. Not all employers felt the need to pursue welfare capitalism as recounted in the firsthand experiences of Mary Thomas, the wife of a coal mine worker during the Ludlow Massacre, noting harsh employer tactics including being forced to sleep on hay, go without food, having tents burned, strikers killed by the state militia, and finally being sent to jail herself but never charged. Ford’s workers received some of the most progressive welfare capitalistic benefits of their time but also rejected welfare capitalism because oppressive conditions continued. Ford workers instead demanded greater control over work. The Rise of Knowledge Work Shifts in work equate to shifts in money and power. Finite resources including time and money create scarcity firms must address. Firms’ mandatory expenses increased as laws governing workers’ rights continued to improve. The impact to firms must be considered since firms must remain viable to create opportunity for households to trade labor for financial gain. Firms must simultaneously navigate the headwinds of variable input costs, fluctuating demand, shifting market conditions, regulations, and hosts of other costs that threaten a firm’s ability to exist. Top contributors to the failure of businesses remain taxes and payroll since fiscal obligations occasionally lead to a lack of funds needed to sustain growth and operations. Firms must make money to survive and employ people, but people require incentives to work for firms creating the codependent cycle between employers and employees. Legal obligations like the proposed thirty five hour work week while optimizing human performance ultimately impact companies’ bottom lines diverting capital and resources from firms’ profits to support legal requirements. Firms argue mandatory costs imposed by regulations combined with market costs shift the balance too far toward employees creating an environment where additional hiring is not possible even though desired. When firms cannot react quickly by cutting costs, risks to a firm’s viability and employees livelihood compound. Wages and salaries account for fifty to eighty percent of firms cost incurred prompting firms to argue for the need for a “great deal of flexibility in cutting wages, hiring and firing, and adding extra hours of work or trimming back work hours.” Firms point to additional economic impacts related to cost pressure from unionization and laws such as the FLSA as a cause for hiring part-time instead of full-time employees or causing layoffs to ensure solvency. Joe Messerli asserts requiring businesses to conform to FLSA requirements such as minimum wage costs the economy jobs, inflate prices, and harm small business. Not all costs to firms occurred in the distant past. Firms point to recent impacts from cost imposed by mandatory healthcare coverage for full time workers. As overall employment drops, Messerli argues, a surplus of labor supply can lead to decreased wages and an opposite effect of the intention of worker protection laws. Working Smarter A healthy economy requires proper balance. Proper balance between firms and employees is important for firms to ensure profitability while also ensuring the maximization of the most critical component of production; people. The workplace fundamentally shifted again from the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie era. Peter Drucker, a management consultant and founder of the Drucker Institute, advised business leaders in a 1992 article that the world economy migrated from manufacturing to knowledge work. Drucker noted the most important action management could take increasing knowledge worker productivity and autonomy. Data shows productivity has increased since measurements in 1947. Much of the improvement in productivity, however, focused on optimization of work processes and technological advancements. The issue as noted by Mr. Drucker is work has shifted from focus areas of previous optimization and moved to knowledge, creativity, and problem solving. Firms must now shift from previous trends in optimization to focus on people using science to inform business decisions on human limitations, motivation, and methods to engage employees to produce best results. Optimal conditions allow people, like machines of the industrial past, to thrive.
Working excessive hours is counterproductive to both employees and employers. Firms suffer as quality, innovation, and output fall because of overworked employees. Negative effects of overwork include impacts to productivity, interpersonal relations, judgments, task prioritization, and employee retention which impact firm’s bottom line. Studies also show negative impacts of working past human constraints manifest as health issues impacting output or causing employees to miss work because of sickness. Working more does not equate to greater production failing to achieve the goal of both employees and
employers. Like people, firms must remain healthy to survive thereby providing a vehicle for people to work. While firms argue the cost of reducing the standard work week to thirty five hours is steep, research shows factors such as productivity and retention rates rise when people perform tasks rested, committed, and engaged. The formerly hidden benefits of happy, engaged workers allow firms to prosper by ensuring people powering firms remain healthy, rested, motivated, and effective while decreasing risks including retention, brand impact, quality, and innovation deficits needed for firms to thrive. The argument firms employ against government enforced rules such as the proposed thirty five hour work week asserts mandated mechanisms delivering assurances create a counterproductive effect. Reduced flexibility and imposed costs divert investment from growing business, investing in more workers, or tailoring benefits to workers desires. Firms blame existing laws for preventing customized incentive packages tailored to individuals. Flexible benefits not at firms discretion include compensation time, payment in company shares, bonuses, flex time, profit sharing, and compressed schedules forcing firms to only address workers’ needs using money or hours of work allowed per week.
Ford offered an incredible perk for people working in his company. He offered the workers $5 a day minimum wage even though in other auto industries the wages were $2.34. So Ford was paying more than double the average wage to his workers, this shows his dedication to his work. Henry Ford despised Labor Unions for the sole reason that they were pointless and that because he thought he knew how to take care of his workers better than anybody else did. However, in 1941 he faced a general strike from his workers that made him change his mind, reluctantly. Ford had worked a lot to create a car that would be affordable to any common person. He stated, “ I will build a car for the great multitude…so low in price that no one will be unable to own one.
During the summer of 1933, job recovery was still a major part of ending the Great Depression. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was the largest piece of industrial recovery and regulations during the time period. FDR stated, “Its object is to put industry and business workers into employment and increase their purchasing power through increased wages.” It did abundantly more than that. It also ended child labor, sweat shops, and lowered weekly wages in the mining industry. It set a “code of fair competition” in place that fixed prices, wages and established production quotas. In March 1934, the NRA created a set of industrial codes for all industries. In total there were more than 500 codes. They were created on an industry-by-industry basis governing wages, prices and business practices.
Unlike any president before him, President Roosevelt faced the Great Depression and created the New Deal to try and ensure the economic and political wealth of the United States. In 1935, the federal government guaranteed unions the right to organize and bargain collectively, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established minimum wage and maximum outs. Beginning in 1933, the government also helped rural and agricultural American with development programs and assume responsibility for the economy of the United States. Essentially, the New Deal sought to ensure that the benefits of American capitalism were spread equally amongst the many diverse peoples of the United States. Even though Roosevelt's New Deal failed to cure completely the economy of the Great Depression, his governmental policies during it established a new norm for succeeding governments to
To deal with this, workers from both eras fought unfair labor practices by creating unions and strikes. During the Progressive Era, employers soon realized better paid workers were better able to afford the products they were selling. Henry Ford was one of the first employers to realize this, as a result he raised the pay of workers to an average of $5 per day. This resulted in Ford’s annual input increasing from 34,000 cars to 730,000 cars from 1910 to 1930.
The FLSA began on a Saturday, June 25, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills, one of them being the landmark law in the Nation's social and economic development the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ( Grossman, 1978). This law did not come easy, wage-hour and child-labor laws had made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1918 in Hammer v. Dagenhart in which the Court by one vote held unconstitutional a Federal child-labor law. Similarly in Adkins v. Children's Hospital in 1923, the Court voided the District of Columbia law that set minimum wages for women, during the 1930's the Court's action on other social legislation was even more devastating (Grossman, 1978). Then came the New Deal Promise in 1933, President Roosevelt's idea of suspending antitrust laws so that industries could enforce fair-traded codes resulting in less competition and higher wages; It was known as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) ( Grossman, 1978). The President set out "to raise wages, create employment, and thus restore business," the Nation's employers signed more than 2.
Of course, there were not always supporters of Henry Ford. If fact, there were many critics, critics who believed that Henry Ford was so controversial that it prevented the potential of Fords from becoming greater than it is today. By the mid twenties the Ford’s was already the worlds most successful automobile company, but their great reputation would soon decline. Fords $5/day plan for all employees signified the overwhelming success of the company. Many believed this success was short-lived with the new policies dealing with the workers which soon followed. With the need to increase production and lower costs, in the mid 30’s Ford cut all Ford worker’s wages in half.
The industrialists, or robber barons, provided workers with low wages, long work hours, and unsafe working conditions. Andrew Carnegie, a wealthy steel manufacturer, provided horrible conditions for his workers. With dropping steel prices, Henry C. Frick, the manager of the homestead steel plant, wanted to drastically cut wages; have laborers work a twelve-hour day, six days a week; and destroy the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers Union. Carnegie supported Frick’s views, which no Captain of Industry, or someone concerned with “moving forward”, not just growing their wealth, would have agreed with. Due to the poor conditions given to Carnegie’s workers, they went on the Homestead Plant workers strike. The workers ultimately lost and poor working conditions were still in play. Some could argue that Frick was the one being unfair towards workers, not Carnegie; however, Carnegie hired Frick to be the manager of the steel plant and he agreed with his views. The businessmen were against unions, fair wages, and improved worker conditions. The industrials of the 1900s were robber barons that only cared if their workers were working to make them
A considerable amount of literature has been published on the impact of working hours (8 vs. 12 hour shifts) on fatigue among the nurses. These studies revealed that twelve-hour shifts increase the risk of fatigue, reduce the level of alertness and performance, and therefore reduce the safety aspect compared to eight-hour shifts (Mitchell and Williamson, 1997; Dorrian et al., 2006; Dembe et al., 2009; Tasto et al., 1978). Mills et al. (1982) found that the risk of fatigues and performance errors are associated with the 12-hour shifts. Beside this, Jostone et al. (2002) revealed that nurses who are working for long hours are providing hasty performance with increased possibility of errors.
Harrington, J. M. (2001). Health Effects of Shift Work and Extended Hours of Work. OEM Education. Retrieved on December 3, 2013, from http://oem.bmj.com/content/58/1/68.full. doi: 10.1136.oem.58.1.68
Organizations face massive challenges in attracting and retaining a high-quality and productive workforce. Companies are continually looking for new ways to keep their employees satisfied at all levels in order to harness greater productivity and ideas from people while keeping them motivated and happy. One real challenge examined earlier is the need to transform General Motors to be a much more productive and fully utilized organization by examining the hourly workforce. This is a great change from the traditional "us versus them" mentality of the past between management and the union.
In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt produced a progression of economic policies called The New Deal. One of those policies which, became known as the minimum wage, guaranteed that all workers in America earn enough pay to provide for their families. The New Deal marked the beginning of federal control of wages to make certain every worker be able to earn a living wage. The economic system was created by people, is maintained by people, and is constantly modified by people (Cunningham 52).
The Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed by Congress on June 25th, 1938. The main objective of the act was to eliminate “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standards of living necessary for health, efficiency and well-being of workers,”[1] who engaged directly or indirectly in interstate commerce, including those involved in production of goods bound for such commerce. A major provision of the act established a maximum work week and minimum wage. Initially, the minimum wage was $0.25 per hour, along with a maximum workweek of 44 hours for the first year, 42 for the second year and 40 thereafter. Minimum wages of $0.25 per hour were established for the first year, $0.30 for the second year, and $0.40 over a period of the next six years.
The most benefited policies created through the New Deal for employment, one, the Social Security Act (1935), provides “old-aged pensions and unemployment insurance. A payroll tax on workers and their employers were created a fund from which retirees received monthly pensions after age sixty-five.” (pg 470 Out of Many) Second, National Labor Relations Act (1935), also known as the Wagner Act, gave Americans the right to form a union and bargain with their employers for better pay and working conditions. Third, and the most important one of all Fair Labor Standard Act (1938), it established a minimum wage and maximum hours for an employee.
The potential ramifications for the employer can be costly when employees succumb to internal and external stressors. To effectively combat job stress and develop a comprehensive stress management program, organizations must be cognizant of several areas that may be contributing factors to an employee’s stress level. Internally, organizations should review the employee’s workload and ensure that they have the necessary skills to complete the tasks they are expected to complete (Ornelas & Kleiner, 2003). They must also work to “motivate, challenge and take full advantage of the employee’s skills and abilities” (Ornelas & Kleiner, 2003). Employee’s job stress can also be decreased by allowing them take an active part in decisions, creating an atmosphere that facilitates a support network, and offering flexibility in their schedules that allows them to address responsibilities outside the workplace (Ornelas & Kleiner, 2003).
Research indicates that long working hours contribute largely to stress and stress related diseases. Currently, employees are being put on pressure by the organization in order to achieve the set goals. Nevertheless, the employees are willing to work for longer hours in order to earn more money to satisfy their increasing needs (Gullotta et al., 2003:23). On the other hand, the organizations have been compelling their subordinates to work for longer hours as a way of punishment or increasing the possibility of achieving the set goals within the stipulated time. This aspect has increased the number of depressed people in the population. With many people being unaware of how to deal with depression, they are turning to smoking. As a result, long working hours have been associated with smoking behaviors (Burke & Cooper 2008:46). The most affected people are the young people. This behavior has increased the number of people suffering from cancer and other respiratory related diseases in the world. In addition, it has increased the number of people suffering from heart and lung diseases.