Company scrip

Company scrip is scrip (a substitute for government-issued legal tender or currency) issued by a company to pay its employees. It can only be exchanged in company stores owned by the employers. In the United Kingdom, such truck wage systems have long been formally outlawed under the Truck Acts. In the United States, payment in scrip became illegal in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, there are claims that scrip was still used until the 1960s, for example in plantations in Alabama.

In the United States, mining and logging camps were typically created, owned and operated by a single company. These locations, some quite remote, were often scarce in cash. Even in ones that were not, workers who were paid in scrip had little choice but to purchase goods at a company store, as exchange into currency, if even available, would exhaust some of the value via the exchange fee. With this economic monopoly, the employer could place large markups on goods, thus making workers dependent on the company, and thus enforcing a form of loyalty to the company. While scrip was not exclusive to the coal industry, an estimated 75 percent of all scrip used was by coal companies in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.