During his association with Carl Zeiss' microscope works, not only was he at the forefront of the field of optics but also labor reform. He founded the social democratic Jenaische Zeitung (newspaper) in 1890 and in 1900, introduced the eight-hour workday, in remembrance of the 14-hour workday of his own father. In addition, he created a pension fund and a discharge compensation fund. In 1889, Ernst Abbe set up and endowed the Carl Zeiss Foundation for research in science. The aim of the foundation was "to secure the economic, scientific, and technological future and in this way to improve the job security of their employees." He made it a point that the success of an employee was based solely on their ability and performance, not on their origin, religion, or political views. In 1896, he reorganized the Zeiss optical works into a cooperative with profit-sharing. His social views were so respected as to be used by the Prussian state as a model and idealized by Alfred Weber in the 1947 book "Schriften der Heidelberger Aktionsgruppe zur Demokratie und Zum Freien Sozialismus".