© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A view shows the SMART Alabama manufacturing plant in Luverne, Alabama, U.S., on December 4, 2022.
By Joshua Schneyer, Mica Rosenberg, and Kristina Cooke
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hyundai Motor Co said it is in talks with the U.S. Department of Labor to resolve concerns about child workers in its U.S. supply chain at Alabama factories filled with related hazards. to the auto giant.
In a statement late Tuesday, Hyundai told Reuters it has had a series of discussions with the Labor Department, which has been investigating a Hyundai subsidiary in Alabama and other parts suppliers to the automaker, and its brand. sister Kia Corp, for possible child labor violations. .
Discussions with the US labor regulator have focused on “compliance measures throughout our supply chain,” company spokesman Michael Stewart said in a statement. He also detailed several new measures that Hyundai is implementing to “ensure that non-compliance never happens again.”
Among them: Hyundai said it will implement new job training programs throughout its US supply chain, validate job applicants’ identification documents, establish anonymous tip-off hotlines and discourage the use of recruiting agencies. third party personnel. Reuters found that those agencies sometimes placed underage workers at supplier plants.
The Labor Department declined to comment on meetings or discussions with Hyundai. In a statement, a department spokesman said he is “committed to ensuring that employers understand their responsibility under the law and engages with employers to help them achieve compliance.”
Hyundai’s statement comes as a US congresswoman whose Alabama district includes the site of the company’s US assembly plant is lobbying the automaker to ensure that children no longer work illegally at auto plants in the state.
Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat, said she had a series of talks with Hyundai, including one last week, to address concerns at auto parts factories that supply Hyundai and Kia.
“I have made it clear that the use of child labor is abhorrent and unacceptable, and that there must be accountability,” Sewell told Reuters in a statement. The congresswoman said she will continue to work with Hyundai, federal regulators and autoworkers in Alabama to ensure the automaker’s actions “will be enough to prevent this from happening again.”
‘CHILD LABOR IS UNACCEPTABLE’
Hyundai is Alabama’s leading employer of factories. It relies on a network of mostly Korean-owned suppliers across the state to build its popular American-made cars and SUVs at its Montgomery plant.
“We share Congresswoman Sewell’s view that the use of child labor is unacceptable,” Hyundai said.
Sewell’s comments are the first by a high-ranking Alabama official on child labor issues in Hyundai’s supply chain. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s office, as well as other US lawmakers in the state, did not respond to requests for comment.
Hyundai’s new actions and its discussions with regulators and lawmakers come after Reuters documented child labor at several Alabama auto plants that make parts for Hyundai or Kia. The reports have sparked investigations and backlash from investors, unions and consumers.
One of the plants, SMART Alabama LLC, is directly owned by Hyundai. The US and Alabama Departments of Labor launched an investigation after a Reuters article last July found that Central American migrant children had been working at SMART.
Then, in August, authorities raided SL Alabama LLC, another Hyundai supplier, and removed several children from the factory floor. Regulators fine SL and its labor recruiter.
In December, Reuters reported firsthand on recent child labor at more Korean-owned auto factories across the state and revealed that state and federal authorities were investigating as many as ten Alabama plants that supply Hyundai and Kia.
Those investigations are ongoing. Authorities are also investigating whether underage workers in Hyundai’s supply chain in Alabama may have fallen victim to child labor trafficking rings, according to two officials familiar with the matter.
Hyundai said it took “immediate action” upon learning of violations at SMART Alabama and SL last year.
EXPANDING US OPERATIONS
Hyundai has visited or held discussions with 29 supply plants in Alabama and has asked them to submit to independent third-party audits, the company said this week.
“As a result, Hyundai is confident that there are no child labor issues at our Tier 1 suppliers,” he added. Tier 1 suppliers make Hyundai vehicle parts for sale directly to the automaker.
Once authorities began to investigate, Reuters previously reported, the staffing companies fired young-looking foreign workers from several of the plants where they had been placed.
Child labor reports have highlighted Hyundai’s growing operations in the United States. Last year, construction broke out on a $5.54 billion electric vehicle and battery plant in Georgia.
Hyundai and Kia have global labor statutes that prohibit child labor in their factories and those of suppliers. Alabama and US laws restrict factory work to persons under the age of 16, and all workers under the age of 18 are prohibited from many jobs in auto plants, where metal presses, cutting machines and speeding forklifts can be dangerous.
Amid labor shortages in the region, many of Alabama’s plants relied on staffing companies to recruit low-wage assembly-line workers with little vetting, Reuters found.
Any delay in delivering its quota of parts to Hyundai and Kia could result in the plants racking up late fees of thousands of dollars per minute. Statutory fines for child labor, by contrast, can be relatively small.
