Alabama
Alabama.
Hmmmmm!?!?
Alabama.
Despite the fact that in May U.S. News and World Report ranked Huntsville as the “Best Place to Live,” there’s so much more to say about Alabama.
Like - Dead last - #50 – in education for two straight years in a row.
But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what Josh Moon of the Alabama Political Reporter had to say on May 18, 2022:
We were 47th in education and 45th in healthcare and 43rd in crime and corrections and 38th in overall economy and 37th in both opportunity and natural environment (probably because we do such a purposefully poor job of protecting the incredible natural environment we have in Alabama).
Not great.
But the sad reality is that U.S. News did us a favor by limiting the judging to those few categories. Because we’re drop-dead awful in way more.
Like being the third-worst state in child well-being, according to the 2021 Alabama Kids Count Data Book compiled by Voices for Alabama Children. That data found nearly a quarter (24 percent) of Alabama kids living in poverty and 20 percent of Alabama kids experiencing food insecurity.
We also ranked near the bottom in life expectancy, according to that same report, with citizens in the 7th congressional district (73.2 years) expected to live a DECADE LESS than people in San Francisco (83.4 years), which had the nation’s highest life expectancy.
We also had the nation’s fourth-worst infant mortality rate. So bad that the March of Dimes gave the state an F, primarily due to a 13 percent preterm rate. The state averaged 7 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births, compared to a 5.5 average nationally. (Pro-life, indeed.)
Not surprisingly, Alabama was ranked the worst state in the South for women. Not even Mississippi could save us, according to research compiled by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The state scored Ds and Fs in every statistical category, including political participation, earnings, poverty, work and family, health, reproductive rights and well-being.
Thank you, Mr. Moon.
But, good Sir, you missed one of your state’s truly outstanding accomplishments. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Alabama’s great concern for women did not extend to victims of rape and incest. Instead, in late July, in an expression of Alabama’s great preoccupation with female modesty, a reporter was told her skirt prevented her from witnessing the state-sponsored murder of inmate Joe Nathan James, Jr.
Yup!
AL.com’s Ivanna Hrynkiw tweeted that she was initially told she could not witness the execution “because my skirt was too short. I have worn this skirt to prior executions without incident, to work, professional events and more and I believe it is more than appropriate”
In the end – after donning borrowed “waterproof, Columbia PFG style fisherman’s wader pants” and her own tennis shoes because her open toe heels were also too immodest to observe a death, she was permitted to witness James’s execution by lethal injection.
Alabama’s concern for right-to-birth did not extend to the pleas of the family of Faith Hall, whose two daughters, who were 3 and 6 when their mother was killed and repeatedly said they wanted James to serve life in prison instead of being executed.
In a statement issued through the office of state representative Juandalynn Givans, the family said
"Today is a tragic day for our family. We are having to relive the hurt that this caused us many years ago. We hoped the state wouldn't take a life simply because a life was taken and we have forgiven Mr. Joe Nathan James Jr. for his atrocities toward our family. ... We pray that God allows us to find healing after today and that one day our criminal justice system will listen to the cries of families like ours even if it goes against what the state wishes.”
“I just feel like we can’t play God. We can’t take a life. And it’s not going to bring my mom back,” Terryln Hall told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
“We thought about it and prayed about it, and we found it in ourselves to forgive him for what he did. We really wish there was something that we could do to stop it… I did hate him. I did. And I know that is such a strong feeling word, but I really did have hate in my heart. As I got older and realized, you can’t walk around with hate in your heart. You still got to live. And once I had kids of my own, you know, I can’t pass it down to my kids and have them walk around with hate in their hearts.”
July was brutal to “The Yellow Hammer State,” also known as “The Heart of Dixie” (because Montgomery was the first capital of the Confederacy, which, incidentally and despite all those “stars and bars” flags waved at some political rallies, LOST THE CIVIL WAR).
In July it was reported that the Great State of Alabama may – and we emphasize may – have reintroduced child labor and indentured servitude.
On July 22, London-based Reuters, one of the world’s largest news agencies, reported:
A subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co has used child labor at a plant that supplies parts for the Korean carmaker's assembly line in nearby Montgomery, Alabama, according to area police, the family of three underage workers, and eight former and current employees of the factory.
Parts for the Hyundai Elantra, Sonata and Santa Fe models are built at the facility, which has paid at least $48,515 in Occupational and Safety Health Administration penalties since 2013.
Reuters reported that the news service first “learned of underage workers at the Hyundai-owned supplier [SMART] following the brief disappearance in February of a Guatemalan immigrant child from her family’s home in [Enterprise] Alabama.” After issuing an Amber Alert, police located the girl using cell phone geolocation data. She was in Athens, Georgia, in the company of a 21-year-old Guatemalan male and they told police they had travelled together looking for other work opportunities. He was arrested and later deported.
The girl, who had worked at the SMART Alabama LLC Montgomery plant and turned 14 in July 2022, came to police attention in February, when her father, Pedro Tzi, reported her missing. Enterprise police confirmed that she and her brothers,12- and 15-years-old, worked at the SMART plant earlier in 2022 and were not attending school. Detective James Sanders confirmed to Reuters that the state attorney general’s office had been notified.
A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Labor reported that the agency would be coordinating its investigation with the U.S. Department of Labor and other agencies.
Reuters says the siblings were “among a larger cohort of underage workers who found jobs at the Hyundai-owned supplier over the past few years” and cites interviews with “a dozen former and current plant employees and labor recruiters.” The news agency could not confirm how many child laborers had been employed at the plant or the terms of their employment, including pay rates.
The sprawling Montgomery facility has a documented history of health and safety violations, including amputation hazards. Reuters reported that U.S. labor shortages and supply chain disruptions have heightened risks that children, especially undocumented migrants, could end up in workplaces that are hazardous and illegal for minors.
Reuters noted that state and federal laws limit minors under age 18 from working in metal stamping and pressing operations such as SMART, where proximity to dangerous machinery can put them at risk. Alabama law also requires children 17 and under to be enrolled in school
Hyundai is planning over $5 billion in investments in the United States, including a new electric vehicle factory near Savannah, Georgia.
It appears, according to current and former SMART employees, that SMART hired through recruitment agencies – allowing large employers like SMART to outsource responsibility for checking the eligibility and ages of employees. Reuters reported,
One former worker at SMART, an adult migrant who left for another auto industry job last year, said there were around 50 underage workers between the different plant shifts, adding that he knew some of them personally. Another former adult worker at SMART, a U.S. citizen who also left the plant last year, said she worked alongside about a dozen minors on her shift.
Tabatha Moultry, who left the SMART factory in 2019, told Reuters that the plant turned to hiring migrant workers to remedy high turnover and increasing demands on production.
Ms. Moultry told of working with a migrant girl who “looked 11 or 12 years old” and came to work each day with her mother. ““She was way too young to be working in that plant or any plant.” The child ultimately admitting she was 13.
Another former SMART employee, an adult immigrant, told Reuters there were around fifty underage workers between the different plant shifts and said he knew some of them personally. A U.S. citizen and former plant worker said she worked alongside about a dozen minors on her shift.
Despite SMART’s insistence that it does not employ minors, workers say that dozens of child workers were dismissed in anticipation of scrutiny following the Tzi girl’s missing persons case.
Reuters reported that the facility, which can supply parts for up to 400,000 vehicles a year, has had difficulties retaining enough employees to meet the parts demand and, in a letter to U.S. consular officials in Mexico, a company representative emphasized that Hyundai “will not tolerate such short comings.”
In a July 22 statement, Hyundai said it has “no evidence that there is any truth to these allegations.” “Hyundai does not tolerate illegal employment practices in any Hyundai entity,” said company spokesperson Dana White. And SMART issued a statement asserting that the plant “denies any allegation that it knowingly employed anyone who is ineligible for employment.”
The Alabama Department of Labor issued a statement that reads, in part
“… regardless of whomever [sic] was paying the minor, the presence of the minor alone is all that [is] needed to establish that they are an employee. They were at the SMART factory, they are a SMART employee as far as Alabama Child Labor Law is concerned.”
“Reform your ways and your deeds;
Listen to the voice of the Lord your God.”
Jeremiah 26
Wow! Those Hyundai statements are so convincing.
At this writing, there are fewer than 90 days before Alabamans go to the polls to elect a governor, a US senator, six representatives, and an entire state legislature. We don’t know how many candidates will receive the full-throated and deep-pocketed support of Hyundai, SMART, and the hiring agencies that have helped The Yellow Hammer State take advantage of the desperation of undocumented Central American families and re-establish child labor.
We pray that Alabama’s People of Faith and No Faith will consider the morality of accepting Hyundai and hiring agency campaign funds and vote against child labor profiteers and their allies.
Effective June 24, except when the life of the mother is in danger, all abortions – including for cases of rape and incest – are illegal in Alabama.
Short skirts and opened-toed high heels can prevent women reporters from witnessing an execution in Alabama.
But servile child labor can be overlooked.
May God help us all!