The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday sued South Korean auto giant Hyundai Motor Co an auto parts plant and a labor recruiter over illegal use of child labor in Alabama.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama, also sought an order requiring the companies to relinquish any profits related to the use of child labor.
Reuters reported in 2022 that children, some as young as 12, worked for a Hyundai subsidiary and in other parts suppliers for the company in the Southern state.
The Labor Department filing named three companies as defendants for employing a 13-year-old child: Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC; SMART Alabama LLC, an auto parts company; and Best Practice Service LLC, a staffing firm.
The Department’s Wage and Hour Division found the child had worked up to 60 hours per week on a SMART assembly line operating machines that formed sheet metal into auto body parts.
“Companies cannot escape liability by blaming suppliers or staffing companies for child labor violations when they are in fact also employers themselves,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said in a press release.
A Reuters investigation revealed the widespread and illegal employment of migrant children in Alabama factories supplying parts to both Hyundai and sister brand Kia.
Reuters learned of underage workers at Hyundai supplier SMART, in Luverne, Alabama, following the brief disappearance in February 2022 of a Guatemalan migrant child from her family’s home in Alabama.
The 13-year-old girl and her two brothers, aged 12 and 15 at the time, all worked at the plant in 2022 and were not going to school, according to people familiar with their employment.
At the time, SMART was a Hyundai subsidiary.
The Labor Department said that at the time of the alleged violations, SMART’s operations were “so integrated” with Hyundai’s main manufacturing plant in Montgomery that “the two companies were a single employer for purposes of liability” under U.S. labor law. And that along with the staffing firm, the three companies “jointly employed” the minor.
