Workweek

History

In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, a predecessor of the AFL-CIO created mid-twentieth century, called for all workers to have eight-hour days by May 1, 1886, playing a crucial role in the push for a five-day workweek. In 1908, the first five-day workweek in the United States was instituted by a New Englandcotton mill so that Jewish workers would not have to work on the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. In 1926, Henry Ford began shutting down his automotive factories for all of Saturday and Sunday, realizing that by giving workers more time off it would encourage more leisure activities such as vacations and shopping. In 1929, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was the first union to demand and receive a five-day workweek. The rest of the United States slowly followed, but it was not until 1940, when a provision of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act mandating a maximum 40-hour workweek went into effect, that the two-day weekend was adopted nationwide.