Possible legal trouble for Hyundai In the USA. The Korean giant, together with a car parts company and a labor recruiter, was in fact sued by the United States Department of Labor on charges of illegal abuse of child labor in Alabama. The complaint in question was filed in the U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama, and also sought an order requiring the offending companies to give up any profit that derives from the crime indicated.
Allegations of child labor
According to a Reuters investigation conducted in 2022, children, some of only 12 years old, they allegedly worked for a subsidiary of Hyundai and at other component suppliers of the Korean company in the southern state of Alabama. In particular, the Department of Labor statement named three companies as defendants for hiring a boy as young as 13: the manufacturer Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC, the auto parts company SMART Alabama LLC and the staffing firm Best Practice Service LLC.
Hyundai sued
Recall that the SMART plant supplies components to Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama which assembles mass-market cars such as the Santa Fe, Tucson and Santa Cruz. In this sense, the Wage and Hour Division of the Department mentioned above discovered that the boy had worked up to a maximum of 60 hours per week on a SMART assembly line that used machinery that they turned sheet metal into car body parts.
The defense of the Korean giant
“We have worked for many months to thoroughly investigate this issue and have taken corrective measures immediate and extensive – declared Hyundai spokesman Michael Stewart – We have also required our Alabama suppliers to conduct independent audits of their workforce. In this case, the Department of Labor is seeking to apply an unprecedented legal theory that would unfairly hold Hyundai liable for the actions of its suppliers and that It would set a worrying precedent for other companies and automotive manufacturers.”
#Child #labor #Hyundai #sued #USA
