Company scrip is currency

Currency

In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...

 issued in certain industries to pay workers. Such scrip

Scrip

Scrip is an American term for any substitute for currency which is not legal tender and is often a form of credit. Scrips were created as company payment of employees and also as a means of payment in times where regular money is unavailable, such as remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long...

 can only be exchanged by wage

Wage

A wage is a compensation, usually financial, received by workers in exchange for their labor.Compensation in terms of wages is given to workers and compensation in terms of salary is given to employees...

-earners in company stores

Truck system

A truck system is an arrangement in which employees are paid in commodities or some currency substitute , rather than with standard money. This limits employees' ability to choose how to spend their earnings—generally to the benefit of the employer...

 owned by their employers and often charging inflated prices. In the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, such systems have been formally outlawed under Truck Acts.

In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 and logging

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

 camps were typically created, owned and operated by a single company. These remote locations were cash poor and workers had very little choice but to purchase goods at a company store.