Prominent South Korean automotive manufacturer Hyundai has launched an investigation into allegations of child labor in their US supply chain, Reuters has reported, citing the company’s Global Chief Operating Officer Jose Munoz.
Earlier this year, an investigative report by the media outlet revealed that children, “including a 12-year-old”, were working at a Hyundai-controlled metal stamping plant in Alabama. The revelation prompted the state’s Department of Labor to investigate the plant in coordination with US federal agencies.
Speaking with Reuters this week, Munoz said that he had ordered a “broader investigation into Hyundai’s entire network of US auto parts suppliers for potential labor law violations,” and that Hyundai intends to “sever relations” with two plants in Alabama that fell under scrutiny for possible underage labor.
Commenting on this situation, Professor Gordon Lafer, co-director of the Labor Education & Research Center at the University of Oregon, told Sputnik that two things seem to make the aforementioned situation a “much more widespread problem than it should be”.
Firstly, he explained, the US federal Department of Labor and the departments of labor of individual states are underfunded to the point that they have a “tiny number of inspectors” who are supposed to visit work sites and ensure compliance with employment laws.
“Over the decades, the number of laws has increased (minimum wage, overtime, child labor, occupational health and safety, family and medical leave, race and sex discrimination, etc.) but the number of inspectors has been cut, so most employers never worry about being inspected,” said Lafer, who was a senior policy advisor for the House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor in 2009-2010.
To make matters worse, he added, most inspections actually come in response to complaints, but the very workers whose rights are most likely to be violated, such as undocumented migrants and teenagers, are usually the least likely to complain due to fear of being sacked.
“Departments of labor need to have a proactive strategy of doing surprise inspections in industries where they know statistically that the most illegal behavior is taking place,” Lafer suggested.
The other factor, according to Lafer, is the “commonality with which employers use subcontractors, staffing companies or temp agencies,” exploiting loopholes in US legislation and managing to mistreat workers while evading legal responsibility.
This issue got so big, he pointed out, that David Weil, US Department of Labor's wage and hour administrator during the Obama presidency, “has written books” about it and sought to address the problem.
“He was pushing a policy in which a company who contracts with a staffing agency is considered a ‘joint employer,’ so that both are liable for illegal employment practices. But most companies can turn a blind eye to staffing agencies or labor contractors and not be forced to take legal responsibility,” he lamented.