Hyundai hired child labor in Alabama with fake ID

It has been revealed that Korean automobile giant Motor Group employed child labor at a warehouse in Montgomery, Alabama using fake documents, reports Reuters.

Federal labor officials unearthed the issue during a surprise inspection after receiving an anonymous complaint about underage children working at Hyundai’s unit.

They spotted a boy worker at the logistics unit and began an inquiry.

Field report of the Alabama Department of Labor reveals that the 16-year-old “Fernando Ramos” from Mexico was a middle school student. His forged documents showed he was a 34-year-old man from Tennessee.

Only the name of the school was true. Both the Tennessee ID card and the social security cards were phony.

Furthermore
Investigators concluded that the boy has been working from age 14. Agencies in Alabama have hired him at least for three other auto part makers for Hyundai, which also happens to be the largest employer in the state.

The labor department has fined the agencies $5,050.

The United States Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) prohibits child labor. But there are approximately 500,000 child farmworkers in the US. Many start working as young as age 8.