Truck System

[GrahamSimons]

In contrast my father told me of payments to his staff in the 1940s. The men received their pay in sealed envelopes which went home to the wife. She would extract the beer money and retain the remainder. One man came to him in distress - he'd opened the envelope before he got home and as a consequence was promptly thrown out on the street by his wife. My father ended up mediating.

[Tickettyboo]

In contrast my father told me of payments to his staff in the 1940s. The men received their pay in sealed envelopes which went home to the wife. She would extract the beer money and retain the remainder. One man came to him in distress - he'd opened the envelope before he got home and as a consequence was promptly thrown out on the street by his wife. My father ended up mediating.

:-) oh yes I remember my Granma talking to a lady whose son was about to get married. Lady wasn't keen on the idea and had warned the son 'she is the type who wouldn't stand for a broken pay packet'

I was quite young but had the sense to wait till we were alone to ask Granma what the lady meant.
Boo

[Annie65115]

It wasn't only miners. The truck system was quite common in Leicestershire, when large numbers of family were employed as FWK (frame work knitters) in the textile trade. This was a trade that was almost entirely carried out in the worker's home. Some people owned their own knitting frames but often the frames in their homes were leased from the factory owners who supplied the work. The workers were then paid in tokens to be exchanged in the village shop, which was also owned and stocked by the factory owners. The whole system was mediated by the "bag men".

I'm sure it happened in many other trades and many other places too.

[Zefiro]

I'm sure it happened in many other trades and many other places too.

You're right. It was widespread. Lots of different trades and lots of countries.
Workers had no other option than to spend a (big) part of their wages in shops owned by their wealthy bosses.

[Gan Yam]

There was a truck system in the New Lanark Mills, (Lanarkshire) and when Robert Owen (1771 - 1858) bought the mills he made it a much fairer system.  The goods in the shop were sold at just above the wholesale price and the goods were good quality, unlike systems that operated elsewhere.   He also became a pioneer of primary education and set up a school room where the children would receive an education, some 70 years prior to education being formalised in Britain.  Granted they still had to go to work in the mill after they had been to school.  But maybe they had a slightly better life with a more progressive owner!