A 13-year-old girl from Guatemala and her two brothers aged 12 and 15 worked at Hyundai’s subsidiary plant in Alabama.
This was confirmed by their father and the police. A subsidiary of the South Korean company Hyundai Motor in Alabama (USA) used child labor, writes Reuters with reference to the police, the family of underage workers, as well as current and current employees of the enterprise.
We are talking about SMART Alabama LLC, which supplies parts for Hyundai’s flagship assembly plant in the USA, located in Montgomery (the administrative center of Alabama). In Hyundai’s corporate documents, SMART is listed as its division.
Information about child labor at the plant appeared in February, when a 13-year-old girl disappeared from the home of a Guatemalan family in the city of Enterprise. As it turned out, she and her brothers worked at the company for 12 and 15 years and skipped school. This was confirmed by their father and the local police, who have already notified the Alabama Attorney General’s Office about the incident.
The agency also spoke with a dozen current and former employees of the SMART plant, who, on condition of anonymity, said that many minors who worked at the plant refused to study in favor of long shifts. The agency could not find out how many children were involved in work at the enterprise, what salary they received and what working conditions were.
Automaker Hyundai, commenting on the situation, said that “it will not tolerate illegal employment practices in any department.” “We have rules and procedures that require compliance with all local, state and federal laws,” the company said.
SMART reported that they deny any allegations of consciously hiring employees in violation of the law. They said that when hiring temporary employees, they rely on recruitment agencies engaged in recruitment. Questions about the above-mentioned children in the company were left unanswered.
