A Child is Born

According to a recent (12/21/2024) New York Times story, Lt. Caleb Stewart of the Louisville KY police force cited a woman living under an overpass. The ticket carries a fine of $250 for the first violation. Subsequent fines can result in more fines and jail time. The woman told him she was going into labor and that her husband had gone to call for an ambulance, but that cut no ice with the cop.

She later gave birth to a boy.

When asked, Lt. Stewart explained that he couldn’t allow people to violate the law by saying they have a medical emergency. It would set a bad precedent. However, Stewart seems to have a big feelings about the homeless. “Between July 15 and Nov. 20 [he] criminally charged people at least 26 times for violating the encampment law, The Courier Journal of Louisville reported, and during that same period, there were 18 total such citations issued by all other Louisville Metro officers.”

To date three states and 60 localities have passed laws banning the homeless from sleeping outdoors. The six conservatives on the Supreme Court (all of them multimillionaires) most recently upheld such a law in Grants Pass, OR.

There’s nothing new about such laws. As Anatole France wrote in 1894, a century after the French Revolution, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges…”

Just where are the homeless to sleep? What should a pregnant woman do? According to a UCSF study cited by the Times, “26 percent of homeless women between the ages of 18 to 44 who were surveyed in California had been pregnant while unhoused.”

Two millennia ago, a poor pregnant woman traveling with her husband through Bethlehem did find shelter. These days, there just aren’t enough mangers to go around.

Are There No Prisons? Are There No Workhouses?

In Charles Dickens’ story, the miser Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to donate to a fund providing food and heating for the poor. He reluctantly lets Bob Cratchit, his overworked employee, take Christmas day off. Modern Scrooges are more likely to make a public show of charity while squeezing their workers behind the scenes.

Many companies don’t even hire their Bob Cratchits directly, but get them as temporaries through staffing agencies. That way, when the workers are found to be undocumented, or underage, or both, the company can say it had no idea. And it certainly didn’t know that the worker was being paid less than minimum wage.

A year ago I wrote about the increase in the use of child labor via a rollback of protective laws, or corporations just disregarding existing laws. The undocumented face many of the same problems.

Corporations have strong incentives to hire undocumented workers. For one thing, they work cheap. According to the Guardian, “Uline – a giant Wisconsin-based office and shipping supply company controlled by billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein” shuttles workers in from Mexico on tourist visas, or on B1 visas meant for people coming here to receive professional training. Instead of touring or being trained, the Mexicans work in Uline warehouses.

At the same time, the Uihleins have spent tens of millions of dollars supporting politicians, including president-elect Trump, who have called for a mass deportation of immigrants. In the recent election the Uihleins gave candidates even more than Elon Musk did. The family doesn’t even make a show of charity, such as giving to hospitals or art museums. They do make tax-deductible donations to nonprofits—but only to conservative ones, such as right-wing think tanks.

Temporary workers—especially undocumented ones—are as disposable as Kleenex. Per a New York Times investigation, they are often placed in hazardous jobs, for example in construction or food processing plants, with minimal or no training. They are discouraged from reporting injuries, and tossed out when they are badly hurt.

Undocumented workers who are injured on the job may or may not be able to get worker’s compensation or disability benefits—it depends on the state. Some courts have ruled that if they have obtained the job “through fraudulent means,” for example using a fake social security number, they can’t get benefits. Since they couldn’t get the work in the first place without using fake ID, they’re screwed.

Other courts say such workers aren’t entitled to benefits if they won’t be returning to their job after recovery from the injury, or if they can’t be placed in a modified position commensurate with their limitations. But of course the company won’t put them back to work, now that their status has been made public. Screwed again.

And sometimes they are killed. In one case a staffing agency sent Adewale Ezekiel Ogunyemi, an undocumented Nigerian, to work for Rich Products Corporation. Mr. Ogunyemi had come to the United States in a desperate quest to feed his wife and two children. However, on the job at Rich he was caught in a pizza dough processing machine and crushed.  “A spokeswoman for Rich said the company does not hire undocumented workers, but ‘we cannot speak to the practices’ of the staffing agency. She said the company was ‘heartbroken’ by Mr. Ogunyemi’s death, but that the incident was ‘not representative of our culture of safety.’”

Rich Products is a multinational food corporation, operating on every continent except Antarctica, with annual sales over $5 billion. Bob Rich, the senior chairman and majority owner, has a net worth of $7.l billion, and owns three baseball teams. Known as a philanthropist, over the years he has helped raise billions for various charities.  He also enjoys sport fishing. This October he was celebrated at a gala event raising money for conserving certain species of fish—ones that fight hard, giving the angler a bigger thrill.

Mr. Rich may be “heartbroken” at Mr. Ogunyemi’s death, but I wonder if he ever considered donating to the poor guy’s family, now that his pizza-making machines crushed their breadwinner.

A New Year’s Resolution

After Christmas night visits from three ghosts, Ebenezer Scrooge has a change of heart and becomes a kind, generous person. Alas, A Christmas Carol is a work of fiction. The Scrooges of today aren’t visited by ghosts. They sleep soundly, convinced of their righteousness and protected by security guards, police, and the military.

I propose that in the coming year we awaken them from their slumber.