double aught said:
Why is 9 to 5 a saying when working 8 to 5 is far more common? Is it because of this movie?
Labor before and during the industrial revolution was pretty abusive sometimes requiring 100 hours of work for little pay.
The first company to really structure the work week was The Ford Motor Company in 1920s which established both 5 day work week (it used to be 6) and the 40 hour work week and increased average pay for assembly line workers from $2+ per hour to a standard or minimum $5 per hour which was unheard of at the time.
Their workday for the line was established as 9 to 5 an 8 hour day and included a paid lunch period of 30 minutes. This was the time the assembly line was in full swing. It was such a hit that productivity went up with less hours and more pay and swept the industry and spilled into other labor areas to compete for workers.
This later got revised by companies who made employees take unpaid lunch periods and so 8 to 5 with an hour for lunch or other breaks became more common.
But the Ford movement was so well known that working 9 to 5 stuck as a phrase.
Labor laws in the 30s also structured a lot of rules along these lines (and covered overtime, etc.) but Ford did it first.
