The Company Store

How Slavery Is Maintained In Modern Times

by Roland Kriewaldt

The Company Store is one of the oldest scams wherein workers must pay their employers more for living expenses than they earn. This effectively enslaves them.

The company store scam is global and even has cultural notoriety, being mentioned in North To Alaska, a song in which the singer laments: "I owe my soul to the company store!" I was reminded how tragic this situation is while watching Big Sugar, a documentary about the sugar business.

As with all parasitic relationships, the host must be desperate. In the case of the company store, the poor and uneducated are targetted to work abroad or somewhere unfamiliar, lured by promises of a steady and generous income. Naive and eager to earn a living, the worker often ignores the warning signs. And by then it's too late.

In Big Sugar, the parasite is a Palm Beach millionaire. He recruits poor Dominicans to work in his sugar cane fields. Poverty stricken, these people are taken across the border whereupon their passports are usually stolen. Without their proven identity, they also have no country, no rights and no escape route. And so they become slaves by way of a fearful world where imaginary borders exist and people are arrested or shot for crossing them.

Slaves are paid enough to live but not to save money. Their hand to mouth existence is maintained by keeping expenses higher than wages. A final indignity is that they can't leave the plantation to buy cheaper provisions since travel is illegal or impractical from these remote areas. And so they must buy everything from "The Company Store" at oppressive prices.

In the case of Alaska's famous gold rush, the cost of bringing goods into such remote regions would have put a premium on their retail value. Yet there are limits to profiteering and they are always exceeded when the intent is to keep workers enslaved and working for nothing.

Another example are those who entered the Amazon to build roads for a failed World Bank venture. They came out in debt. Miners, gas pipe fitters and fishermen must also endure this hidden cost of remoteness as projected earnings dwindle and costs increase.

What's the solution? Mutiny in some cases. Yet the most effective insurance against exploitation is a government with a strong human rights policy. Unfortunately, many governments profit from slave labour goods just as they do from cigarettes and alcohol. Some politicians are also wealthy businessmen who have mauled their way to the top of the social heap by drinking the blood of the poor. They are not allies in the struggle for social justice. So, unless they have a "Scrooge" type epiphany and change of conscience, we're basically on our own.

So keep in mind, many department store items are kept cheap only by exploiting the poor who make them. Look at the labels: was the product made in North America at a living wage, or in China? Furthermore, the store staff may be part time to save on medical benefits. No wonder corporate profits are up — the people are being beaten down.

It all adds up to no poor people living in Palm Beach, a place where low cost, inferior products are to be avoided at all costs.

Caviar? Or maybe a reality check?