Hyundai severing ties with US supplier for child labor

[activeStick]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...ly-2022-10-19/

A Reuters investigative report in July documented children, including a 12-year-old, working at a Hyundai-controlled metal stamping plant in rural Luverne, Alabama, called SMART Alabama, LLC.

[MRCboicgy]

So many Alabama jokes incoming...

[Looch City]

[iggy_oi]

Good

[activeStick]

Sanction them for child labo---!! Oh wait.

[White Out 403]

cant wait to see the tucker carlson segment on this on how kids are lazy now

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

cant wait to see the tucker carlson segment on this on how kids are lazy now

Unless it turns out the kids were immigrants or minorities. Then he’ll talk about how they were criminals stealing jobs from real Americans.

[Nufy]

Alabama ?? Kid was probably a lead hand...

[blankall]

I'd actually like to get more info on what the "child labour" was. I had jobs when I was 13-14. I delivered flyers when I was 12. Were these kids just doing light labour part-time to earn a few extra bucks? Kids getting jobs at 14 is perfectly legal in Canada.
Most provinces allow 13-14 year olds to work limited light labour jobs, with a parent's permission.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by blankall

I'd actually like to get more info on what the "child labour" was. I had jobs when I was 13-14. I delivered flyers when I was 12. Were these kids just doing light labour part-time to earn a few extra bucks? Kids getting jobs at 14 is perfectly legal in Canada.
Most provinces allow 13-14 year olds to work limited light labour jobs, with a parent's permission.

It might be legal, but it seems Hyundai has a company Human Rights code that forbids the use of child labour. That would be very damaging to their reputation, even if in that jurisdiction it is legal.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Unless it turns out the kids were immigrants or minorities. Then he’ll talk about how they were criminals stealing jobs from real Americans.

From the article

As Reuters reported, migrant children from Guatemala found working at SMART Alabama, LLC and SL Alabama had been hired by recruiting or staffing firms in the region.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by blankall

I'd actually like to get more info on what the "child labour" was. I had jobs when I was 13-14. I delivered flyers when I was 12. Were these kids just doing light labour part-time to earn a few extra bucks? Kids getting jobs at 14 is perfectly legal in Canada.
Most provinces allow 13-14 year olds to work limited light labour jobs, with a parent's permission.

If you click through the links to the previous reporting on this, there are quotes from other workers at the plant saying they were working on the line side-by-side with the adult workers.

Also, the kids weren't enrolled in school and appear to have been working full-time.

So, it definitely looks like this wasn't just a couple of kids sweeping up the shop floor after school, but full-on exploitation of immigrant child labour.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

cant wait to see the tucker carlson segment on this on how kids are lazy now

Are restrictive child labour laws in America making kids lazy?

I'm just asking questions.

[getbak]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exc...ry-2022-07-22/

Reuters learned of underage workers at the Hyundai-owned supplier following the brief disappearance in February of a Guatemalan migrant child from her family's home in Alabama.

The girl, who turns 14 this month, and her two brothers, aged 12 and 15, all worked at the plant earlier this year and weren't going to school, according to people familiar with their employment. Their father, Pedro Tzi, confirmed these people's account in an interview with Reuters.

Police in the Tzi family's adopted hometown of Enterprise also told Reuters that the girl and her siblings had worked at SMART. The police, who helped locate the missing girl, at the time of their search identified her by name in a public alert.

Pedro Tzi's children, who have now enrolled for the upcoming school term, were among a larger cohort of underage workers who found jobs at the Hyundai-owned supplier over the past few years, according to interviews with a dozen former and current plant employees and labor recruiters.

Several of these minors, they said, have foregone schooling in order to work long shifts at the plant, a sprawling facility with a documented history of health and safety violations, including amputation hazards.

A Reuters review of the records shows SMART has been assessed with at least $48,515 in OSHA penalties since 2013, and was most recently fined this year. OSHA inspections at SMART have documented violations including crush and amputation hazards at the factory.

Many of the minors at the plant were hired through recruitment agencies, according to current and former SMART workers and local labor recruiters.

Although staffing firms help fill industrial jobs nationwide, they have often been criticized by labor advocates because they enable large employers to outsource responsibility for checking the eligibility of employees to work.

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.

Another former employee, Tabatha Moultry, 39, worked on SMART's assembly line for several years through 2019. Moultry said the plant had high turnover and increasingly relied on migrant workers to keep up with intense production demands. She said she remembered working with one migrant girl who "looked 11 or 12 years old."

The girl would come to work with her mother, Moultry said. When Moultry asked her real age, the girl said she was 13. "She was way too young to be working in that plant, or any plant," Moultry said. Moultry didn't provide further details about the girl and Reuters couldn't independently confirm her account.

Tzi, the father of the girl who went missing, contacted Enterprise police on Feb 3, after she didn't come home. Police issued an amber alert, a public advisory when law enforcement believes a child is in danger.

They also launched a manhunt for Alvaro Cucul, 21, another Guatemalan migrant and SMART worker around that time with whom Tzi believed she might be. Using cell phone geolocation data, police located Cucul and the girl in a parking lot in Athens, Georgia.

The girl told officers that Cucul was a friend and that they had traveled there to look for other work opportunities. Cucul was arrested and later deported, according to people familiar with his deportation. Cucul didn't respond to a Facebook message from Reuters seeking comment.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by blankall

I'd actually like to get more info on what the "child labour" was. I had jobs when I was 13-14. I delivered flyers when I was 12. Were these kids just doing light labour part-time to earn a few extra bucks? Kids getting jobs at 14 is perfectly legal in Canada.
Most provinces allow 13-14 year olds to work limited light labour jobs, with a parent's permission.

Here's the article about what they found - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exc...ry-2022-07-22/

Reuters learned of underage workers at the Hyundai-owned supplier following the brief disappearance in February of a Guatemalan migrant child from her family's home in Alabama.

The girl, who turns 14 this month, and her two brothers, aged 12 and 15, all worked at the plant earlier this year and weren't going to school, according to people familiar with their employment. Their father, Pedro Tzi, confirmed these people's account in an interview with Reuters.

Police in the Tzi family's adopted hometown of Enterprise also told Reuters that the girl and her siblings had worked at SMART. The police, who helped locate the missing girl, at the time of their search identified her by name in a public alert.

Alabama 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.

Another former employee, Tabatha Moultry, 39, worked on SMART's assembly line for several years through 2019. Moultry said the plant had high turnover and increasingly relied on migrant workers to keep up with intense production demands. She said she remembered working with one migrant girl who "looked 11 or 12 years old."

The girl would come to work with her mother, Moultry said. When Moultry asked her real age, the girl said she was 13. "She was way too young to be working in that plant, or any plant," Moultry said. Moultry didn't provide further details about the girl and Reuters couldn't independently confirm her account.

Seems likely that the company was having trouble finding workers... was using migrant workers and outsourcing to agencies.

[Locke]

Lol! $50K in OSHA penalties in almost a decade?

Yeah...that'll make 'em stop...

[KelVarnsen]

Is this how they make wah?