City Laborers Find Relief at the Bank
Mayor Phelps intervenes to stop the exploitation of city laborers by 'scrip buyers' who were charging fees to cash municipal pay checks.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
At a meeting of the advisory board held last week, Mayor Phelps called attention to the fact that many laborers on the streets and sewers were obliged to pay a discount for the cashing of their time checks. He said this was a great injustice to men who were working at $1.50 a day. That was all the city could afford to pay its laborers, but they should have that in full without paying tribute to scrip buyers. He suggested that all banks having city deposits be asked to cash time checks which are regularly issued by the departments and authorized by the board of public works at their face value. Treasurer Atkinson, acting upon this suggestion, visited the banks and all of them agreed to take time checks at par. This will be of great benefit to the poor laborers who have heretofore been obliged to pay tribute to the scrip buyers if they required money before the regular city payday, the 10th day of each month.
“That was all the city could afford to pay its laborers, but they should have that in full without paying tribute to scrip buyers.”
In the 1890s, the struggle for a fair day's wage was complicated by predatory middle-men who profited from the immediate needs of the working class. Today, this resonates with modern struggles against predatory payday lending and the 'gig economy' where workers often wait on payment cycles or face fees to access their own earnings.
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