WeDon'tNeedNoOneVille
Joshua Schneyer, Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke have published an extremely disturbing story with Reuters:
Metal stamping?
A subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co has used child labor at a plant that supplies parts for the Korean carmaker's assembly line in nearby Montgomery, Alabama, according to area police, the family of three underage workers, and eight former and current employees of the factory.
Underage workers, in some cases as young as 12, have recently worked at a metal stamping plant operated by SMART Alabama LLC, these people said...
Metal stamping?
Gosh. That is not flipping burgers.
But is the practice actually widespread and exploitative?
Well...
As you might expect, the corporate entity concerned buries this practice, and these kids (many of whom appear to be immigrants), under layers of contracted hiring services in what appears to be a bald-faced effort to avoid any accountability whatsoever in a US'ian state where labour laws are lax and unions have been effectively neutered.
Is this the new modern world we want to live (and buy cheap cars) in?
_____
But is the practice actually widespread and exploitative?
Well...
...One former worker at SMART, an adult migrant who left for another auto industry job last year, said there were around 50 underage workers between the different plant shifts, adding that he knew some of them personally. Another former adult worker at SMART, a U.S. citizen who also left the plant last year, said she worked alongside about a dozen minors on her shift...
As you might expect, the corporate entity concerned buries this practice, and these kids (many of whom appear to be immigrants), under layers of contracted hiring services in what appears to be a bald-faced effort to avoid any accountability whatsoever in a US'ian state where labour laws are lax and unions have been effectively neutered.
Is this the new modern world we want to live (and buy cheap cars) in?
_____
1 comment:
Watched the video, This is the Modern World", It still sounds good.
When I read the article earlier this week, it was no surprise to me. We have seen American states lower the working age and conditions before. Corporations just want to make money and don't care how they do it. Its the Modern Way in the U.S.A and child labour is as old as "civilization" No one will be charged, other companies may give it a try. Any supervisor would have known these children were not adults, but as long as they get what they want, they don't care. Many of these children may have been unducmented and would have said nothing to any one. this is much like Trump during the pandemic when he kept the slaughter houses open so their owners could benefit. there was no real reason to do it except for money.
Child labour is a mark that a country is either on its way down or down. It usually means, higher unemployment for adults, more poverty, less education, loss of rights. This e.g. of child labour is consitent with what America is becoming, just another 3rd world dictatorship where rights of people of colour, women and children are not taken into consideration. Only rich white males count in their world.
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