US sues Hyundai for alleged child labor

Lina PortmanJune 3, 2024

0 4 minutes read

Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama celebrates the 5 millionth vehicle built, a Santa Cruz, at Hyundai's U.S. assembly plant in Montgomery, Alabama, Thursday, August 12, 2021

The US Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit against Hyundai Motor Co. – as well as a labor supplier and recruiter – for “oppressive child labor” in the US state of Alabama.

He named three companies as defendants in his complaint for allegedly jointly employing a 13-year-old girl: Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC, SMART Alabama LLC, an auto parts company, and Best Practice Service, LLC, a job placement company. staff.

The department alleges that Best Practice sent the child to work at SMART Alabama, which supplied auto parts to Hyundai.

The complaint further alleges that the companies violated the “hot goods” provision of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act.

The department's Wage and Hour Division discovered that the child worked up to 60 hours per week on a SMART assembly line, “with machines that turned sheet metal into automobile body parts.”

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The filing also alleged that “as a result of the waived illegal conduct, defendants unfairly benefited from their use of oppressive child labor.”

The complaint also sought to order the companies to release profits linked to the alleged use of child labor.

In the press release from the Ministry of Labor, Labor Lawyer Seema Nanda said: “The Ministry of Labor's complaint seeks to hold the three employers responsible for the supply chain. Companies cannot escape liability by accusing their suppliers or recruitment companies of child labor violations when they are in fact employers themselves.

In an emailed statement to the Reuters news agency, Hyundai said the company no longer holds any stake in SMART, which changed its name to ITAC Alabama in 2023, according to the court filing.

The Department of Labor filing also states that SMART informed the staffing company that “two additional employees were not welcome at the facility based on their appearance and other physical characteristics, which suggested they were also minors.

Speaking to Reuters, Hyundai spokesman Michael Stewart said the company had “worked for several months to thoroughly investigate this issue and took immediate and thorough corrective action.”

In 2022, Reuters reported that children as young as 12 were working for a Hyundai subsidiary and other company parts suppliers in Alabama.