In mining communities and other places in which there are "company
stores," there is the pressure exercised by the employer to force the
employee to deal only with the company store, even when there are
other stores in the neighborhood.
The United States Immigration Commission had something to say on this
point. It made it clear that, while there are instances of an employer
giving his employees a fair deal when he becomes merchant and they
purchasers, the combination of employing and merchandising functions
is often perilous. Even if the employee appears to have a choice, he
fears the loss of his job if he does not buy at the company store. The
evils connected with so-called "truck payments" have long been
recognized. They change only in form when the company check replaces
the old payment in kind.[32]
In some states this evil has been recognized by legislation
prohibiting the combination of industrial and merchandising functions.
Where such is the case, as in Pennsylvania, the statute is evaded. A
separate corporation is organized by the same individuals, or a store
is conducted by an individual who is a member of the mining
corporation. Where there is a "store" administered in any of these
ways, "company checks" may be issued between pay days. Or "store
books" may be issued, the items purchased being recorded, and deducted
on pay day from the wages of the employee.
The Immigration Commission published a table[33] of the expenditures
at such stores, the amounts deducted from the wages, and the
proportion of earnings left to be collected at the end of the month,
illustrating the confusing effect of these practices on the housewife
whose income should be a settled and regular amount. While some of the
Croatians and Magyars spent hardly a fourth or a third of their
earnings at the company store, others in the same national groups
collected on pay day less than a fifth or even less than a tenth of
their earnings. From this balance must come the payments for rent,
medical service, entertainment, school, for all things other than
food, clothes, and furniture.
It may be that in some cases the employee is able to secure at the
company store as good articles as he can obtain elsewhere and for the
same prices, but this is by no means common. In West Virginia it was
found necessary to enact legislation forbidding a company which ran a
store to charge its own employees higher prices than the employees of
other companies were charged.[34] The Immigration Commission found not
only that in some cases the stock was inferior and the prices high,
but that there was a sense of compulsion that made it almost
impossible to adjust income and needs.
It is hardly necessary to point out that the supply of housing
accommodations by the employer has the same influence as the supply of
food and clothing. The power as employer may be, and often is, exerted
to fix the conditions under which the family life goes on; and the
tenant is deprived of the experience of selecting, of choosing, of
balancing what one gives with what one gets.[35]
A similar objection may be raised to payment of wages by check. In the
old days, before the world went dry, one service the saloon was
frequently called on to render was that of cashing checks. Either
payment in "lawful money" or an opportunity to exchange at once for
lawful money is the only method of paying wages that gives the
housewife her full opportunity.