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Five-day week adopted by Ford in 1926 reduced the workweek to 40 hours and influenced labor laws in various countries
A historic change in work organization was formalized by Ford on May 1, 1926, attracting worldwide attention.
The company began to adopt the 5×2 schedule, with five days of work and two days of rest, in its large manufacturing park.
At that time, Henry Ford stated that workers’ leisure should not be seen as “wasted time” or a class privilege.
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The decision put Ford ahead of the international standard of the time, as the International Labor Organization had set, in 1919, the ceiling of 48 hours per week.
With the new schedule, the automaker’s employees began to work 40 hours per week, a model that later spread throughout the industry.
Ford’s decision transformed the industrial standard
The change did not happen suddenly.
Ford was already testing the new format in some departments before the official adoption.
In 1922, Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford and president of the company since 1919, argued that every worker needed more than one day a week for rest and recreation.
According to him, more free time would help employees to better interact with their families.
The model gained strength in the United States after Ford’s adoption.
In 1938, the weekly work limit was set by law to 44 hours.
Soon after, in 1940, the ceiling dropped to 40 hours per week, exactly as Ford had applied 14 years earlier.
Productivity, consumption, and free time entered the same logic
Henry Ford’s decision was not just humanitarian, despite the strong social impact.
In practice, the entrepreneur also saw the reduction of working hours as a strategy for productivity and consumption.
In 1913, the assembly line of the Ford T reduced the production time of a car from 12 hours to just over 1.5 hours.
In 1914, Ford had already doubled the minimum wage of his employees, causing controversy among other industrialists.
Thus, the advancement of production allowed for shorter working hours, better wages, and greater efficiency within factories.
According to historian Paulo Henrique Martinez, professor at Unesp, better wages and free time helped stimulate consumption habits.
The worker also began to be seen as a consumer.
With more rest, he could stroll, travel, shop, and even use more automobiles.
Model gained strength after World War II
After World War II, the Fordist system of work organization spread to several countries.
According to Martinez, the American model of industrialization was multiplied in societies linked to economic reconstruction after 1945.
Meanwhile, labor lawyer Pedro Maciel assesses that the adoption occurred because the shorter working hours demonstrated economic advantage for companies.
Fewer working hours did not necessarily mean less money.
Professor Claudinor Roberto Barbiero, from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, states that Ford gave scale and industrial prestige to the model.
Thus, the five-day week stopped appearing as just a social concession.
Instead, it came to be seen as a possible management strategy.
5×2 schedule gradually arrived in Brazil
In Brazil, the limitation of working hours advanced later.
In 1932, during the government of Getúlio Vargas, two decrees limited the workday to eight hours daily and six days a week.
In 1943, the Consolidation of Labor Laws reinforced these limits.
In 1949, another law began to guarantee paid weekly rest.
In the 1988 Constitution, the maximum workweek was set at 44 hours, even after proposals advocating a 40-hour ceiling.
According to Martinez, business, financial, and commercial sectors resisted a greater reduction.
Barbiero states that the two-day weekend gained strength in the country mainly after 1988.
In many companies, the 44 hours began to be distributed between Monday and Friday.
Debate on work hours remains current
Currently, the 5×2 schedule remains linked to discussions about productivity, well-being, and quality of life.
For the lawyer Alessandro Vietri, postgraduate from PUC-SP, weekly rest is part of human dignity and the mental health of the worker.
He argues that changes in the organization of work hours should be made in a planned manner.
Thus, companies, especially smaller ones, could adapt better.
In the end, the decision made by Henry Ford 100 years ago showed that free time, production, and consumption could go hand in hand.
After all, if the 5×2 schedule was born within a large industry, why does it still provoke such strong debates about work, rest, and productivity?
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