<P> On 5 January 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit . </P> <P> In the summer of 1915, amid increased labour demand for World War I, a series of strikes demanding the eight - hour day began in Bridgeport, Connecticut . They were so successful that they spread throughout the Northeast . </P> <P> The United States Adamson Act in 1916 established an eight - hour day, with additional pay for overtime, for railroad workers . This was the first federal law that regulated the hours of workers in private companies . The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act in Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332 (1917). </P> <P> The eight - hour day might have been realised for many working people in the US in 1937, when what became the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 U.S. Code Chapter 8) was first proposed under the New Deal . As enacted, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented about twenty percent of the US labour force . In those industries, it set the maximum workweek at 40 hours, but provided that employees working beyond 40 hours a week would receive additional overtime bonus salaries . </P>

Who introduced the 8 hour 5 day work week in 1926