Korean auto giant Hyundai investigating child labor in its U.S. supply chain

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CNN Business — Hyundai Motor Co, Korea’s top automaker, is investigating child labor violations in its U.S. supply chain and plans to “sever ties” with Hyundai suppliers in Alabama found to have relied on underage workers, the company’s global chief operating officer Jose Munoz told Reuters on Wednesday.
In an interview before a Reuters event in Detroit on Wednesday, Munoz said Hyundai intends to “sever relations” with the two Alabama supplier plants under scrutiny for deploying underage labor “as soon as possible.”
Munoz’s comments represent the Korean automotive giant’s most substantive public acknowledgment to date that child labor violations may have occurred in its U.S. supply chain, a network of dozens of mostly Korean-owned auto-parts plants that supply Hyundai’s massive vehicle assembly plant in Montgomery, Alabama.
Munoz’s comments come on the same day that an investor group working with union pension funds sent a letter to Hyundai, pushing it to respond to reports of child labor at U.S. parts suppliers, and warning of potential reputational damage to the Korean automaker.