Hyundai Alabama subsidiary employs children in metal stamping plant: report
Hyundai subsidiary Smart Alabama LLC allegedly employed underage workers as young as 12 at its plant in Luverne, Alabama, according to a Reuters investigation. The Smart metal stamping plant manufactures parts for Hyundai Elantra, Santa Fe and Sonata models produced at the automaker’s flagship US plant in nearby Montgomery.
Alabama law prohibits minors under the age of 18 from working at metal stamping and pressing facilities like Smart, due in part to the hazards presented by the machines. The employment of minors isn’t the only problem with the smart factory, however. The Reuters report notes that he has “a documented history of health and safety violations, including amputation risks.” Despite these dangers, sources familiar with the matter paint a picture of a company willing to turn a blind eye to employment eligibility as long as its products come out on time. Reuters writing :
A former SMART worker, an adult migrant who left for another job in the auto industry last year, said there were around 50 underage workers between different shifts at the plant, adding that he knew some of them personally. Another former adult SMART worker, a US citizen who also left the plant last year, said she worked alongside about a dozen miners during her shift.
Another former employee, Tabatha Moultry, 39, worked on SMART’s assembly line for several years until 2019. Moultry said the plant had high turnover and increasingly relied on migrant workers to meet intense production demands. She said she remembered working with a migrant girl who “looked like she was 11 or 12”.
The daughter would come to work with her mother, Moultry said. When Moultry asked her real age, the girl replied that she was 13. “She was way too young to work in that factory, or any factory,” Moultry said.
Reuters
When asked for comment, a Hyundai representative provided an official statement to The reader“Hyundai does not tolerate illegal employment practices at any Hyundai entity. We have policies and procedures in place that require compliance with all local, state and federal laws.”
Labor recruiters as well as current and former factory employees said Reuters that many miners have found employment with Smart through recruitment agencies. Although there are recruiting agencies that are above the edge, critics say hiring through these agencies can be a workaround to shift blame to the agency when it comes up. is to determine if an employee is eligible to work.
ReutersReporters first learned of the existence of underage Smart workers after a 14-year-old Guatemalan migrant child disappeared from his family’s home in Enterprise, Alabama. After discovering that the girl and her two brothers worked at the factory, local Enterprise police turned the case over to the state attorney general to investigate possible labor law violations. A spokesperson for the Alabama Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the case for Reuters.
Smart declined to respond to any of the Reuters’ specific stories, saying he “denies any allegations that he knowingly employed anyone who is not eligible for employment”. While acknowledging the use of temp agencies to fill vacancies at the plant, the Smart representative said Reuters that the company “these agencies comply with the law in recruiting, hiring and placing workers on its premises”.
Hyundai is one of the world’s most profitable automakers and plans to expand further in the United States, starting with a $5.5 billion plant in Georgia focused on electric vehicles.
“Consumers should be outraged,” said former Occupational Safety and Health Administration labor secretary David Michaels. Reuters. “They should know that these cars are built, at least in part, by workers who are children and need to be in school rather than risk their lives and physical integrity because their families desperately need the income.”
You can read Reuters’ full report here.
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