“Truck was payment not in money but in goods or tickets which could be exchanged for goods…. The principle that contractors could buy in bulk and retail to the workmen, deducting the cost from their wages, was sound but was open to abuse; in fact truck became a means of robbery. Railway contractors frequently made more profit from truck than from the contract…. Truck shops, frequently called tommy shops or tally shops, might be run by the contractor or let by him to an associate or a shopkeeper for a rent or on the basis that part of the shop profits would go back to the contractor. The goods were frequently inferior and sold at excessive prices.” David M. Walker, 6 A Legal History of Scotland 820 (2001).
truck
truck. Hist. Scots law. The payment of wages in scrip or goods. • Truck systems, once common where workers had to live in isolated areas and depended on company stores for food and clothing, were abolished in the 19th century.
