The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1891-07-17
The Company store Abuse.

In anticipation of the new Act of AS
semblv for the suppression of the store
order system in Pennsylvania the Cambris
Iron Company at Johnstown has changed
it base, probably with little design of
changing its methods. The hrm OF
Wood, Morrell & Co. is to be supplanted
by joint stock company, but whether
the store order abuse is to be continued
in some new guise remains to be seen.
Under its act of incorporation the
Cambria Iron Company was prohibited
! from keeping store or carrying on any
business save that connected with the
manufacture of iron and steel. But
this prohibition was easily evaded by
creating the firm of Wood, Morreli 4
Co, ring within a ring, whose profits
the leading managers, if not the stock
holders of the corporation, shared
among themselves.
Nowhere in Pennsylvania has the
abuse of the company-store system been
carried to such perfection as under the
| Cambria Iron corporation at Johnstown
and Hollidaysburg. The system was
made so thorough that a workingman in
the employ of this corporation had no
excuse for demanding payment of wages
H.
/ order constituted the only currency with
which its employees were familiar. Not
| only did the company supply them with
| all the necessaries and luxuries they re-
| quired ''at current prices" but it also
! provided them with tailors and shoe
makers. In case of illness the company
| physician was called in and his fees were
paid in orders on the store. When
IL, -,e-t, l.
| company clergyman performed the cere-
mony. The great corporation, in its be-
nevolence and paternal care of its work
! ingmen, made the most thorough pro-
, vision that they should not waste their
earnings in extravaganza anywhere
save at the company store. There are
instances in which other employers of
! labor having no business connection
with the Cambria Iron Company give
! their employees orders on the company
store, and receive a certain percentage of
rebate on paying the bills. The work
ingmen receiving the orders paid the
, difference out of their wages.
The new law of Pennsylvania has
been carefully framed so as to put an end
/ to this shameful plumber of workingmen.
! 1t is probable that this law, too, will be
.
, the corporations and other employers
/ keeping store, unless easy methods shall
be found for evading its provisions.
! The last law on the subject was declared
null and void by the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania on the grounds that it vio-
lated the right of private contract. Yet,
! strange to say, the English people, from
I whom we derive our common law and
so large body of our statute law, passed
and enforced an act to prohibit the COM
/ pany-store abuse and to require that
wages be paid only in cash. The Eng
j. lish law was based on the sound principle
/ that contracts for payment in store
orders, like many other nefarious con-
tracts, are against public policy, and
that there can be no parity of contract
when the workingmen must choose be-
! tween the acceptance of store orders TO
/ fitch his wages and loss of employment
and starvation This is the principle
upon which the latest Pennsylvania
statute against store orders is based
| Phiid. Record.