November 4 - Back to Work, Back to Life

"So, what have we got today?"
"Strawberry farm."
"Again?"
"Yeah, no shit. Eh, what do you want? It's the season."
"Yeah, but still. Strawberry farms are boring me to death."
"Nice one."
"Wh--? Oh, yeah."
The two men rode in silence for a few minutes.
"I just don't get it."
"What don't you get?"
"I guess, like, what's the temptation? OK, let me take that back. I know what the temptation is. Cheap labor."
"Free labor."
"Free labor. OK, fine. But not really free. Not when you factor in the risks."
"What risks?"
"Well--"
"Save that thought. We're here."
As the Labor Department vehicle pulled into the gravel driveway, the two officers looked out the windows. There wasn't a person in sight. Just rows and rows of strawberry plants.
This wasn't unusual.
They relied on tip offs for labor violations, and the tip off door swung both ways. If their office had been told there were illegals working somewhere, chances were a snitch in their office had told the farm in question that there'd been a tip off.
And so they'd get there and find a sprawling strawberry farm in the middle of picking season with not one body in the fields. Nobody to bust. Nothing tangible to base anything on. Just the satisfaction of knowing the day's operations at that particular farm had been interrupted--an inconvenience that would no doubt be reflected in the next day's strawberry prices.
The men stepped out of their car and walked up to the mobile home office on the edge of the gravel lot. Martinez rapped on the screen door.
"It's open!" called a voice from inside.
"Ma'am, we're here from the Labor Department. Is the owner here? We need to ask a few questions."
"I said it's open."
The men stood still.
"Come in. Jesus."
They did, and the woman behind the desk didn't get up or offer the officers a seat.
"Madeline Chen?"
"Yes."
"I'm officer Luis Martinez, and this is my partner, officer Nick Maddox. We'll come straight to the point. We've received reports that you're using illegals as part of your seasonal labor force. Could you please show us your payroll records?"
"Sure." She got up, squeezed by the men, and opened a filing cabinet. "Oh, wait. Maybe you could show me a warrant first?"
Nick looked at his partner. "It was worth a shot."
"Is that all?"
The men didn't say anything.
"Is there anything else? Because I'm really busy here."
"You must be with all those strawberries out there and nobody to pick them."
"You should have been here earlier. All my crews finished up a couple hours ago."
"It's 8 am."
Madeline shrugged.
"Look," started Martinez. "Let's cut the bullshit, OK? We know you're using walkers. All the farms around here are."
Madeline started to speak.
"Save it. We're not going to bust you today. You got tipped off. Good for you. But you know we're just going to keep coming back. You can't keep your crews under wraps for the whole season."
"OK, listen," Madeline said. "I'm not going to tell you if you're right or wrong, but if all the farms around here are using walkers--like you said--why haven't there been any problems?"
"Come on, don't get started on that. That's not the point."
"No, seriously. OK, I'll agree with you. Yes, it's common knowledge that all strawberry farmers use walkers--except me." She winked at them. "And it's not just the strawberry farmers. It's all of Big Agriculture. And it's been that way ever since Back to Work, Back to Life was repealed. And you know how many Z outbreaks there have been since then?"
Martinez knew the answer, but he waited for her to make her point.
"Zip. Zero. Zilch," said Madeline.
Martinez knew that. Of course he did. He knew the whole history of Back to Work, Back to Life, the post-reanimation containment legislation that sought to harness the nation's reanimated as a pool of free labor: factory workers, farm workers, semi-skilled and unskilled laborers, etc.
The Great Zombie Outbreak had been contained and the country was left with all those . . . bodies. Back to Work, Back to Life was just a way to make lemonade with a big old heaping mess of lemons--at least that's how the senior Texas senator who sponsored Back to Work, Back to Life put it when he introduced the legislation.
Enjoying considerable biliteral support, it passed comfortably.
And it worked--too well. Every chance they got, businesses used reanimated labor instead of the kind you had to pay. With the money they saved in payroll, it was a no-brainer.
Unfortunately, everyone who had been working those kinds of jobs found themselves out on the street with the bonus stigma of knowing that given the choice between them and a reanimated corpse, their former employers had gone with the corpse.
As a result, there was a strong and well-financed push for the repeal of Back to Work, Back to Life by labor unions, social conservatives, Bible belters, anti-immigration advocates (who feared employment would be a first step toward citizenship), and any other of a number of special interest groups that were vocal in their opposition.
Less than two years after its passage, Back to Work, Back to Life was repealed. The reason given was a fear of outbreaks, and it was a fairly easy sell, even though the vaccination had been proven effective by then. They were all over talk radio and the Internet: If just one new case of the plague comes from this, it will be too many. That kind of thing. It was repealed by a wide margin in both houses.
But by then, the use of walkers (as they were called) had become institutionalized. They were everywhere. And even though there were containment facilities in every state, there were also way more walkers than could be accommodated. They had to go somewhere.
Everybody knew farming concerns (and factories and research facilities and plenty of other places) were using zombie labor, and they knew it was illegal, and they knew they should be against it, but as long as produce (and other) prices were as cheap as they were, most of the country went about their lives. There were plenty of other things to worry about.
And yet, Martinez and Maddox had a job to do (or pretend to do) with a limited budget, tiny staff, and woefully inadequate resources. The enforcement of anti-walker labor laws had no teeth. It was like trying to build a sandcastle in the middle of a hurricane.
They both knew they wouldn't really be getting anything done that day or the next. And even if they did, even if they caught a farm red-handed (or dead-handed, as they called it) big deal. For every farm they put out of operation for a day, for a week, there were a hundred more just like it in their jurisdiction where it was business as usual.
They could have harassed Madeline Chen and written her up for a few nickel and dime infractions, but they didn't feel like giving her the satisfaction.
Instead they thanked her for her time, left her trailer, and started driving to the next farm on their daily tip off list.