This Day in Labor History: January 5, 1914. Henry Ford announced his famous $5 a day wage to his workers. But let's be clear; Ford was a horrible human who treated his workers awful. He's no model and we need to talk about this!

Turnover was a massive problem for employers through the early 20th century. The horrors of industrialization combined with callousness of employers to lead to workers constantly seeking a job that was just a little bit less terrible than the last.

The growth of assembly line work made this worse because it was so boring. Treating a worker like a machine, as Henry Ford did, deskilled and depressed workers who had once partially defined themselves through their physical labor.

This labor was just as physical and exhausting, but required no thinking and provided no satisfaction. Thus the Ford Motor Company had the same turnover problems as other industries. In 1913, the turnover rate for the company was 370 percent.

Ford decided he needed to do something about this turnover. So he began to think about what would become known as welfare capitalism.