sixteen tons

     Remember that old song "Sixteen Tons"?  It was sung as if by a coal miner, who says: "Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go--I owe my soul to the company store".  The company store was real. A manufacturing or mining concern might build housing for its employees, especially if it was located in an otherwise rural area. Rent for the housing was taken out of employee wages. Goods could be bought at a company store, where prices were high. If the company store had competition, workers and their families might shop somewhere else instead. Sometimes the company store was the only place to buy things, and that could be as bad as the author of the song claims.  A company located in a rural area might also pay its workers in company scrip, instead of in cash. The scrip could only be spent at the company store, no matter how high the prices.The company store might also offer credit to employees, who could wind up owing at the end of the week, just for the groceries they needed to survive.An employee who owed money to the company store couldn't quit his job. He might be arrested and charged with theft if he tried to just walk away.  So the song is really a slice of history, now all but forgotten.