In May this year, a 14-year-old Guatemala girl assembled car body parts at a factory owned by Hwashin America Corp, a supplier of the two car brands, the town of Greenville, southern Alabama.
At a factory in Cusseta, an eastern Alabama town owned by South Korean auto parts maker Ajin Industrial Co, a former production engineer told Reuters he works with at least 10 minors. Six other former employees of Ajin said they have also worked with several underage workers.
Hwashin and Ajin said in two separate statements sent by the same PR firm that their policy prohibits hiring any workers who are not of the legal employment age. Both companies use the same language to say that “to the best of our knowledge” they do not employ underage workers.
Hwashin and Ajin have been reported before. Earlier, a Reuters report in July revealed that SMART Alabama LLC, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor in the southern Alabama town of Luverne, one of whom was only 12 years old. In August, the U.S. Department of Labor said SL Alabama LLC, another Hyundai supplier, is a subsidiary of South Korea's SL Corp., whose Alexandria factory employs underage workers, including a 13-year-old worker.
Since then, as many as 10 Alabama factories that supply parts to Hyundai or Kia have been investigated by state and federal law enforcement or regulators for child labour issues, according to two people familiar with the matter.
surveys are being conducted in small towns and rural outposts where many vendors and recruiters working for them are located. The two said it was unclear whether the investigations would result in criminal charges, fines or other penalties.
On August 22, a group of Department of Labor and Alabama inspectors arrived at an Ajin factory without notice, according to people familiar with the matter. One of the inspectors said at a meeting of the Alabama Anti-Trafficking Task Force last month that when the team arrived, workers rushed out from behind the factory and left the factory before they were questioned, according to two people attending the meeting.
