Keeping Time: General Motors-Holden’s Gold Watch Reward Scheme, 1949–2017

Abstract

In 1949, desperate to recruit and hold on to workers, General Motors-Holden (GMH) introduced a ‘gold watch scheme’ to reward employees who gave ‘faithful’ service over twenty-five years. The scheme became entrenched in the company’s culture, creating an elite social tier within the factory sphere. Gold watches, recognising the worker’s elevation in status, were presented at lavish dinners until hard times in the 1980s forced the company to abolish them, creating ill-feeling among some employees. Drawing on oral histories with former workers, this article argues that the gold watch scheme was a barometer not just of GMH’s fluctuating fortunes but of social and demographic changes within the workplace, relationships between the company and its workers, and evolving ideas about the nature of work and job security.