Hyundai is sued after 13-year-old girl is found working on assembly line in Alabama car factory

The federal government has sued Hyundai after a 13-year old girl was found working on an assembly line. 

The  Department of Labor on Thursday sued the South Korean auto giant, an auto parts plant and a labor recruiter over illegal use of child labor in Alabama.

The complaint follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division that found a 13-year-old worked between 50 and 60 hours a week operating machines on an assembly line that formed sheet metal into auto body parts. 

The filing also seeks an order requiring the companies to relinquish any profits related to the use of child labor.

The defendants include Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC, SMART Alabama LLC and Best Practice Service, LLC. 

Hyundai said in a statement that it cooperated fully with the Labor Department and that it is unfair to be held accountable for the practices of its suppliers.

'We are reviewing the new lawsuit and intend to vigorously defend the company,' the statement said.

Reuters reported in 2022 that children, some as young as 12, worked for Hyundai subsidiary SMART and in other parts suppliers for the company in the Southern state.

SMART Alabama in Luverne, an automotive parts manufacturer that has supplied parts for Hyundai since 2003, reportedly fired multiple underage workers as publicity around the missing girl's case heated up.

A former employee alleged that as many as 50 underage workers were employed across various shifts when he was working at the plant.

The accusations date back to a February, 2022, Amber Alert regarding Eidy Aracely Tzi Coc, who had briefly disappeared from her family's home in the town of Enterprise alongside 21-year-old Alvaro Cucul.

Coc and her two brothers, aged 12 and 15, all worked at the plant earlier this year and weren't going to school, according to people familiar with the situation. Pedro Tzi, Eidy's father, confirmed that his children had worked there in an interview.

Tzi contacted Enterprise police on February 3 after she didn't come home and police issued an amber alert.

They also launched a manhunt for Cucul, another Guatemalan migrant and SMART worker around that time with whom Tzi believed she might be. Using cell phone geolocation data, police located Cucul and the girl in a parking lot in Athens, Georgia the same day she was reported missing.

The girl told officers that Cucul was a friend and that they had traveled the nearly 300-mile journey to look for more work. Cucul was arrested and later deported.

After the disappearance generated local news coverage, SMART allegedly dismissed a number of underage workers, according to two former employees and other locals familiar with the plant. The sources said the police attention raised fears that authorities could soon crack down on other underage workers.

SMART Alabama LLC, listed by Hyundai in corporate filings as a majority-owned unit, supplies parts for some of the most popular cars and SUVs built by the automaker in Montgomery, its flagship U.S. assembly plant. 

At the time, SMART, in a statement, said it follows federal, state and local laws and 'denies any allegation that it knowingly employed anyone who is ineligible for employment.'

The company said it relies on temporary work agencies to fill jobs and expects 'these agencies to follow the law in recruiting, hiring, and placing workers on its premises.'

Many of the minors at the plant were hired through recruitment agencies, according to current and former SMART workers and local labor recruiters.

Although staffing firms help fill industrial jobs nationwide, they have often been criticized by labor advocates because they enable large employers to outsource responsibility for checking the eligibility of employees to work.

Alabama and federal laws limit minors under age 18 from working in metal stamping and pressing operations such as SMART, where proximity to dangerous machinery can put them at risk. Alabama law also requires children 17 and under to be enrolled in school.