All for Lolly

Forbidden by a 131-year-old law known as the Truck Act from paying its workers in anything but "current coin of the realm," British industry every Friday has been forking over 15 million little brown packets of pounds, shillings and pence to 60% of the labor force. Friday evening, Mum gets her share. Friday night, pubs, cinemas and dog tracks get .theirs. Saturday morning, tradesmen get theirs. Unfortunately, stickup men usually take theirs early on Friday, and robbers in London alone last year made off with $700,000 worth of lolly. Alarmed by the rising robbery rate throughout Britain, as, bank trucks roam around with their cash loads, Parliament two years ago repealed the Truck Act, permitting firms to pay their workers by check. This month the change went into full effect--but those who counted on a dramatic change underestimated the power of habit in Britain.

British banks, notably the dominant Big Five, have long been exclusively middle-and upper-class institutions. Now anxious to woo the prospering workers, the banks welcomed a provision in the law that would allow workers to have their salaries credited directly to bank accounts. But they feared the prospect of everybody in Britain stampeding to the banks on Friday afternoon to cash their checks. "The banks would be overwhelmed if there were such a mad rush," says Barclays Bank Vice Chairman Ronald Thornton. Small trades men also disliked the idea of having to cash a flurry of checks, fear that they will become stickup targets if forced to keep larger sums of cash on hand. Employers, too, were lukewarm to the whole idea, since writing out checks means more work making up payrolls.

None of them need have worried. Britain's workers, it turned out, did not cotton to the idea of receiving a mere slip of paper for a week's hard work. The worker must ask in writing to be paid by check before his little brown envelope can be discontinued. Apart from a small group of young workers who consider checks a new status symbol, few workers have signed up. Few wage earners in Britain have ever had checking accounts, and many do not fully understand just how they work; be sides, the average worker has a prejudice against banks and likes the feel of his own cash. Said one South London housewife: "We have grown up counting our pennies and sorting everything out so we can see what we've got left." Another factor not so widely acknowledged is that many canny British workmen never tell their wives what they make, and would not like them to find out by reading the paycheck.

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