$5 for what we will

 A rare OTD post, because I came across it and can't stop thinking about it today.  On this Day January 5, in 1914, Henry Ford instituted the $5 day.

This was a big moment.  It was around twice (sorry, my books are all in my office and I'm not going to the college over break for a blog post) what his workers had made previously, and far more than unskilled workers could have made in America.  A much celebrated moment, that, Ford said, would mean that workers in his factories would now be able to buy the cars they were making (spoiler alert: they wouldn't).

The $5 day came with strings attached, though.  The $5 meant that Ford's dreaded Sociological Department (who isn't a little afraid of angering the Sociology Department!) would be visiting the workers' homes, making sure that they were keeping a clean house, abstaining from alcohol, not taking in borders.  The $5 meant that immigrant workers would have to take "Americanization" classes, where they would be instructed in the Ford Company's vision of American behavior.

There's some dispute over how often workers received the $5, by the way, but that's a tale for another day; the program was abandoned by the 1920s.  But while it lasted it was a pretty straightforward exchange: give up control over much of your life in exchange for $5 a day.

This is worth thinking about, because it is the two issues that workers have always weighed: control over one's life and the ability to afford one's life.

In America, more than elsewhere, workers have made that trade.  Immigrants in the early 20th century were stunned by the high wages, and horrified by the deplorable job conditions.  It's one reason why many immigrants--especially from Southern Italy--became "birds of passage," travelling here for a few months to earn some money before heading back to Italy to a life they could stand living, and often coming back again to earn more money.  (I looked up my own great-grandfather's immigration history years ago, hoping to find that he was part of this, but no such luck; he came once and stayed--but of course that may be survivor bias; had he not stayed I wouldn't exist.  More on him some other time.)

Ever since the emergence of new labor history, labor historians have been particularly attuned to issues of workers' control.  One of the few very readable pieces the great David Montgomery ever wrote, his brilliant essay, "Workers' Control in America," focuses laser-like on the way in which workers have lost control over their jobs; and I'd argue that Herbert Gutman's focus on workers' daily lives was of course about the same thing, on workers' control over their home lives.  So much of new labor history focuses on what workers had to give up in order to gain the $5 day it is extraordinary.

Their work points to a valuable lesson for all workers, everywhere: Making that trade, sacrificing control over any aspect of one's life for money, is a dangerous gamble, as indeed, all negotiations are dangerous gambles.  It's a gamble we all take--every time we go to work, in some ways, we agree to sacrifice some of our time and labor in exchange for money.  But figuring out the balance between control and money is a particularly difficult trick, perhaps the ultimate trick to surviving in a world of wage labor.  Henry Ford's workers certainly never mastered it, as the repetitive work and machine-like pace they were required to keep up damaged their health and well-being, generation after generation.  Workers in America today still haven't quite figured it out, as, having sacrificed so much control over our workplaces, we now find our real wages sinking, year after year.

But figuring it out is everything.  It is not work-life balance, but this money-control-balance that truly defines our existence.

A melancholy post, this.  I'll try to find something more pleasant to write about soon.

Happy new year to all!  May 2023 bring better times to come for us all.

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