The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

REPETITIVE MOTION INJURY AND JOB ROTATION
Repetitive motion injury is among the first problems that come to mind 
when one thinks of repetitive assembly line work, and Ford himself con-
sidered it as shown in the following discussion. There were, however, few 
if any such injuries because the repetitive motions did not require much 
physical effort by the worker as opposed to, for example, twisting a screw-
driver for eight hours a day. Ford wrote explicitly in the Introduction: 
“For any one to be required to use more force than is absolutely necessary 

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92  •  The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work
for the job in hand is waste.” As shown below, Ford says explicitly of a par-
ticularly monotonous job that “no muscular energy is required.”
The following discussion also shows that Ford offered job rotation, 
although not many workers took advantage of it.
* * *
I have not been able to discover that repetitive labour injures a man in any 
way. I have been told by parlour experts that repetitive labour is soul—as 
well as body—destroying, but that has not been the result of our investiga-
tions. There was one case of a man who all day long did little but step on a 
treadle release. He thought that the motion was making him one-sided; the 
medical examination did not show that he had been affected but, of course, 
he was changed to another job that used a different set of muscles. In a few 
weeks he asked for his old job again. It would seem reasonable to imag-
ine that going through the same set of motions daily for eight hours would 
produce an abnormal body, but we have never had a case of it. We shift 
men whenever they ask to be shifted and we should like regularly to change 
them—that would be entirely feasible if only the men would have it that 
way. They do not like changes which they do not themselves suggest. Some of 
the operations are undoubtedly monotonous—so monotonous that it seems 
scarcely possible that any man would care to continue long at the same job. 
Probably the most monotonous task in the whole factory is one in which a 
man picks up a gear with a steel hook, shakes it in a vat of oil, then turns 
it into a basket. The motion never varies. The gears come to him always in 
exactly the same place, he gives each one the same number of shakes, and 
he drops it into a basket which is always in the same place. No muscular 
energy is required, no intelligence is required. He does little more than wave 
his hands gently to and fro—the steel rod is so light. Yet the man on that job 
has been doing it for eight solid years. He has saved and invested his money 
until now he has about forty thousand dollars—and he stubbornly resists 
every attempt to force him into a better job!
The most thorough research has not brought out a single case of a man’s 
mind being twisted or deadened by the work. The kind of mind that does not 
like repetitive work does not have to stay in it. The work in each department 
is classified according to its desirability and skill into Classes “A,” “B,” and 
“C,” each class having anywhere from ten to thirty different operations. A 
man comes directly from the employment office to “Class C.” As he gets bet-
ter he goes into “Class B,” and so on into “Class A,” and out of “Class A” into 
tool making or some supervisory capacity. It is up to him to place himself. If 
he stays in production it is because he likes it.

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The Terror of the Machine  •  93