State regulators opened an investigation Friday following news reports that a Hyundai subsidiary in Alabama used child labor at its metal stamping plant.
In some cases, Reuters reported Friday, children as young as 12 were put to work at the SMART Alabama factory in Luverne, which supplies parts for the South Korean automaker’s flagship U.S. assembly plant in nearby Montgomery.
The news outlet said it learned of underage workers following the brief disappearance of a young girl in Alabama. Police in the town of Enterprise, who helped locate the girl, told Reuters that she and her two siblings had worked at SMART. The girl and her brothers were not attending school, Reuters reported, and had worked at the plant earlier this year. SMART denies knowingly employing minors.
The Alabama Department of Labor is now coordinating with other agencies, including the U.S. Labor Department, to begin investigating the matter, a spokesperson for the state agency told The Washington Post in an email Friday.
Alabama law bars minors younger than 16 from working in a manufacturing environment, she said, adding that regardless of what entity was paying the minor, the presence of the underage person alone is all that is needed to establish employment. “They were at the SMART factory, they are a SMART employee as far as Alabama Child Labor Law is concerned,” said Tara Hutchison, the state spokesperson.
The girl turns 14 this month, and her brothers are 12 and 15.
Federal labor officials told The...
On Sept. 18, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced updates to Justice Manual provisions governing False Claims Act (FCA) litigation. The updates (1) limit the use of nonbinding agency gui...