The US Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit against Hyundai Motor Co. – as well as a supplier and a labour recruiter – over alleged “oppressive child labour” in the US state of Alabama.
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It named three firms as defendants in its filing for allegedly jointly employing a 13-year-old girl: Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC, SMART Alabama LLC, an auto parts firm, and Best Practice Service, LLC, a staffing company.
The department alleges Best Practice sent the child to work at SMART Alabama, which provided car parts to Hyundai.
The complaint further alleges that the companies violated the “hot goods” provision of the US Fair Labor Standards Act.
The Department’s Wage and Hour Division found the child had worked up to 60 hours per week on a SMART assembly line, “with machines that formed sheets of metal into body parts for automobiles.”
The filing also alleged that “as a result of the forgoing illegal conduct, Defendants unfairly profited by their use of oppressive child labor.”
The complaint has also sought an order for the companies to release profits related to the use of alleged child labour.
In the Department of Labor’s press release, solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said: “The Department of Labor’s complaint seeks to hold all three employers accountable in the supply chain. Companies cannot escape liability by blaming suppliers or staffing companies for child labor violations when they are in fact also employers themselves.”
In an emailed statement to news agency Reuters, Hyundai said that the firm no longer has any ownership in SMART, which changed its name to ITAC Alabama in 2023, the court filing states.
The Labor Department filing also states that SMART informed the staffing firm that “two additional employees were not welcome back at the facility due to their appearance and other physical characteristics, which suggested they were also underage.”
Speaking to Reuters, Hyundai spokesperson Michael Stewart said the company had “worked over many months to thoroughly investigate this issue and took immediate and extensive remedial measures.”
In 2022, Reuters reported that children as young as 12 worked for a Hyundai subsidiary and in other parts suppliers for the company in Alabama.
