Compant Store, just wanted to share this.

[kessinger]

I wanted to share this with you guys.

www.perryopolis.com/sjcompanystore.shtml


This is why you need SOME regulation on capitalism. Its about Company Stores.

If you scroll down to the bottom it has one mans paycheck. He is paid by how many carts of coal he fills. And basicly after two weeks and 40 tons of coal he he makes $32 bucks, but he owes all of it but 2 dollars back to the company. So he made $.01 per ton of coal.

Its a piece of history.

[marcus]

I agree 100 percent we need SOME regulation.But they have to much regulation and control on company's and its putting us at a disadvantage to other country's and its costing us Millions of good paying jobs.

[jobs1stb4polarbear]

It's a peace of distorded history.

Ford Motor Company is deducting money from my paycheck to pay for my truck.....THOSE FUCKING ASSHOLES.......

I learned this is SHIT in my history books....there was even a song called"Sixteen Tons" about being a coal miner, has the chorus:

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt!
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'coz I can't go --
I owe my soul to the company store!

BUT....and its a big BUT......Remember mines had to be built where the coal was, which was usually in rural areas, often in the "middle of nowhere." Even if the miners could afford to buy or rent, there weren't any houses for miles around! The coal company had to build a whole town for its workers. In the "patch towns," as they were called, houses, schools, and churches were built right next to the mine. The company even built a store for employees and deducted any rent food supplies they bought from the only fucking store in the town they(company built).....

[bo862]

jobs, the way they had this set up it was another form of communism with a different face on it. The difference is, in a communist society you pay the government instead of a company.

Imagine if Ford required you to wear safety glasses, uniforms, coveralls, Kevlar sleeves, gloves and ear plugs. The trick is that you are required to buy them from Ford because they are the only ones that sell the safety equipment that meets their standards. The price for this would be $400 and add in another $100 for the right to enter through the gates and park. Doesn’t leave much to survive on…. Does it?

[jobs1stb4polarbear]

"CHOICE" ....everyone has a choice... ...if one does not like the set up set forth by the company' then one can quit and make no money and die......, work or die...,its cruel but its the nature of game...i don't care how much regulations the goverment imposes on you or your employer....(whether in the 1900's or today)...you will always have a CHOICE....
.......and i do agree with some constructive regulations especially the tax deduction part where i can deduct all of that shit you mention... .so i can have enough money to survive!

[bo862]

if one does not like the set up set forth by the company' then one can quit and make no money and die

It should never be acceptable for a human or corporate entity to force another to make a choice to do as they say or die. It is this mentality that has allowed all forms of slavery to exist throughout our civilization.

[ktpelec]

Aug 1, 2010 20:25:04 GMT -5 bo862 said:

It should never be acceptable for a human or corporate entity to force another to make a choice to do as they say or die. It is this mentality that has allowed all forms of slavery to exist throughout our civilization.

+++

[reliefman]

I'm not sure where this conversation is going. What is it exactly that we deserve? You want to avoid having to pay anybody else for anything that you need to survive?
Option B is to live off of somebody else for free, mommy and daddy, jail, government subsidies.
Option C Want to go "Jeremiah Johnson mountain man", and live off the land? Hunt and fish and trap? Sell your pelts and roasted fish on a stick by the side of the highway? You'll need land, permits, and licenses, which makes you a slave to the government and landowners. Moving to any other country to do this is out of the question too because it's called poaching with penalties sometimes including death.
Option D is death.

Our options were limited before our feet hit the ground, lay in there and get it.

[jobs1stb4polarbear]

ditto

[bo862]

I’m guessing you didn’t read the link above. Here it is again in case you missed it.
www.perryopolis.com/sjcompanystore.shtml

Here are a few lines that I think explain the basics without reading the whole thing.

See below to learn how the coal companies took the miners’ pay right back from them by forcing them to shop at the Company Store

One of the means they employed to achieve this end was to pay the miners (outright slavery having been abolished) and then take the “money” they paid the miners right back from them. I say “money” because sometimes the miners were not paid in money at all, but in “scrip,” which could be spent only at the Company Store. It could not be exchanged for real currency; note that both pieces of scrip above state that the scrip is payable “in merchandise.”

I Never mentioned the word deserve. I do not know what we deserve, but I know we all deserve something better than do exactly as the company says or die.


I never mentioned living off someone for free. In fact I really like the idea of a fair days work for a fair days pay. In the above article those people were sometime paid in company certificates, I can’t imagine how that is a fair days pay.

Do you expect us to labor for free while the owner earns all of the cash? We cannot receive goods for free, why should the company receive labor for free. This is what the companies in that article are doing.

You'll need land, permits, and licenses, which makes you a slave to the government and landowners.

You left out property taxes. This is a whole other discussion but I agree with you 100% on this one.

[reliefman]

Explaining my comment on what I meant by "deserve".

Coal mines are usually found in remote locations. While Walmart does seem to have a store on every corner today, in 1895 they did not. There were no apartments or houses to rent near the coal mines. Most people didn't have cars in 1895 to travel (horses are only good for about 20 miles a day). The company homes, and stores were placed near the coal mines to entice people to work for the coal mines. These weren't and still aren't good jobs.
The companies bought the land, paid to have the houses built, paid the stores employees, who ordered the foods that were sold in the these stores. Scrips were used exactly like cash in these "coal towns". You could use them at the store, or buy eggs from your neighbors, use scrips to bet in poker games, and you could even buy your shine from the local distiller.
People had a choice then, to move somewhere else they didn't have to stay there, they could move away from the coal mines and try to get jobs in big towns that were safer, (maybe), but life usually comes covered in red tape, family obligations, illnesses, promises and bullshit, it fucks up everybodies dreams, that's life.
My point is this, if you want to survive, you have to produce something for somebody. Nobody DESERVES a free ride.

[kessinger]

Polar your right it is about CHOICE. That is what the company store took away from people, I don't know how you can't see that. A fact of life is that you will have to have money. As Americans one of the things that makes it great is that you can move up. The mines TOOK that CHOICE away from the mountain people. It was the only work around. Most would have probably worked there long enough to earn the money to go somewhere else and work. But by paying you in money that only the mine will accept they took that choice, that is why they did it. You were trapped once you started working there. They knew people would leave as soon as they could afford to so they made sure they could never afford to do it. They took the free market, since other stores wouldn't come in an compete because the only money anyone had was USELESS. This also allowed the store to have a monopoly and charge whatever they wanted for the supplies, no competition, more profits. So to me you support taking peoples choices AWAY by supporting the company store, you support stopping capitalism by supporting the company store. It is amazing that you realy believe people should be treated as shitty as possible by some company as the company wants, or die. You believe the American people are just here to serve some companies will, or die. I see that the other way around. Treat your employees right, pay em a decent wage (in real money), or die. I know you believe a company should be able to work kids in sweat shops, poor raw sewage or chemicals in our rivers, grind their hands up in unsafe machines and we can make a choice to go elsewhere. What a lovely world you Republicans have planned for us. Eat shit or Die should be the new motto.

I'm glad to work in a place where a bunch of liberal, pinko, commie, trade unionists have created a place where you don't have to make the choice to have your hand crushed or go somewhere else. I am glad that I get to vote and have some say so on how I am treated and paid in my workplace. In your world we would make $1 and hour or die. I have to say I'm glad I don't live in your perfect world.

[ktpelec]

Kess, +++ X 10!!

[solftail01]

I was raised in pike county ky . MY grandmother and i lived in a coal camp that was owned by, Henry Ford he build the coal camps and yes the company store. He recruited thur newspaper's for workers. My family came from Virgina. He also build the roads,schools and homes. We had water and electric in the company houses. The houses were maintained very well, one year wall paper in all the rooms was replaced, the next year the out sides were painted. The camps were kept very clean and were nice. The prices at the company stores were barely above cost and so was the utilities. My grandfather was so proud to work for Henry Ford, they were some of the first worker's that could make $5.00 a day. When my grandfather got sick, he was paid up to the day he died. After he died our rent dropped to one dollar a year, as long as my grandmother lived there. Was the work hard, yes but so was live back then. When i hired in at KTP in 1973, the work was hard and the rules priddy messed up. No ten hours and out, no food or drinks on the line or electric water fountains. Time change and the unions has helped with these changes. In the early sixties the Ford family was accused of monopolizing and forced to sell all a lot of their holding, including their coal mines. Other companies moved in and with the government introducing welfare the once proud people has lost the incentive to work hard and take care of their property and now the places are run down, and the people depending on the welfare to live. Henry Ford was no saint but after 35 years working at LAP and KTP, i have seen a lot of changes, good and bad. He offered the people of eastern ky a fair wage and a nice place to live, did he make money, yes but the people where not enslaved but chose to live and work there, and most were happy to do so. My time at FORD was sometime not much fun laid off, loss of time,fired twice don't think i was ever called a suckass. But with my educational background FORD and the UAW has helped me raise my kid in a nice home, send then to private schools and collage the first in my family. I know time are bad for some of you now and i hope its gets better soon. My time at FORD was long and sometime hard but the way i was able to raise my family and bring retired with a good pension and benefits i'm an happy, just as my family that worked for Henry in the coal mines. I wish the best for all of you and your family's in the future. Just my two cents

[ktpelec]

This is just another little piece of history about how things were working in the coal mines years ago www.wvdhhr.org/bph/calendar/matewan.htm

[marcus]

I do agree with your last post kess.

[jobs1stb4polarbear]

Eat shit or Die, that IS my motto!

[kessinger]

Good story softtail. Even prior to unions Henry Ford was much more "fair" than most employers. From the people I have spoke to and read about that doesn't seem to be the typical experience but maybe I am just getting the dark side of the story.

Thank you for your side of it. Good post.