Truck-system

Truck-system (English truck, Scotch troch, French troquer, 'to barter') is the practice of paying workmen in goods instead of money. Where large undertakings are carried on at a distance from towns, it is almost necessary that employers should take steps to provide for a regular supply of provisions and other necessaries, to be sold to their men. This form of trading is open to objection on many grounds. The profit to the employer is very doubtful, for the capital which he devotes to his shop might probably be used to greater advantage in his proper business; the men are liable to be defrauded in various ways, because they cannot bargain on equal terms with their employer. A colliery owner, for example, may set up a shop, and may refuse to employ any man who does not deal at the shop. He may supply goods of inferior quality, and dismiss any man who is bold enough to complain. He may make the advances frequently required by the improvident wage-earner, intimating at the same time that he expects the money to be spent at his shop and no other; the account may be further complicated by vexatious deductions of pay for sharpening tools, &c.; and the workman may submit to all these exactions, because there is the threat of dismissal in the background. The evils of the truck-system are known in many countries; Canadian lumbermen, Newfoundland fishermen, and German Socialist leaders have protested in recent years against the abuses above described (cf. also MEXICO, p. 168). In England the Truck Act of 1831 (extended by the amending act of 1887 to all persons engaged in manual labour, except domestic servants) was intended to provide a remedy. Wages are directed to be paid in current coin; the employer cannot plead payment in goods as an answer to an action for wages, nor can he maintain an action for the price of goods supplied. He may supply medicine, medical attendance, fuel and tools for mining, provender for beasts, house accommodation, and victuals prepared under his own roof. Deductions of pay are strictly regulated by the Act of 1887. These statutory rules are sometimes evaded; men who require advances of pay are too much at the mercy of employers to take advantage of the acts. The evils of the system are graphically described in Disraeli's Sybil. In 1853 Mr J. H. Burton was employed by the government to investigate the working of the system in Scotland. His report seems to indicate that legislation fails to reach the abuses complained of; attempts to suppress a long-standing practice may even strengthen its hold. Combination and improved habits of thrift among workmen put an end to the system by making them less dependent on their employers. Employers who evade the law usually allege that they cannot help themselves. The rate of wages, they say, is fixed on the assumption that part will come back in the shape of profit on goods; if they give up the shop, they must pay lower wages, and this the men will not stand. For the English law relating to this subject, see Macdonell, Law of Master and Servant. See also CROOK (GEORGE).