The new men are told that they are beholden to the company for expenses their tools, their train fare, tool sharpening, and even their fuses, caps, and powder. What little pay is left over is issued in company scrip, which is only good at the company s store. We, the audience, are told at the onset of the film that the pay rate per tonnage has just been lowered. This combination is the scissors effect, and it leaves the miners in a subservient position. A powerful way of keeping workers under control is using social mechanisms.
Company scrip is a type of money with no value apart from the company.
The miners are dependent, then, on the company for non-work items necessary for survival, like food and clothing, even their housing. A monopoly will eliminate other choices or make them so unattractive no one will try them. In order to opt out of the Stone Mountain Coal Company web, a miner would have to flee, penniless, to the mountains. There is a sort of caste system in which the miners see the mountain folks as different from themselves. This, combined with the lack of other options resulting from their geographical isolation, serves as a strong deterrent to just running away.