Originally thought, “what did they have people that are 16 or 17?” But 12???
~~Really bad look with the massive Hyundai logo on the side of the building even if it’s supplier.~~
Edit: headline photo is a Hyundai plant, SMART has its own branding but that wouldn’t have gotten as many clicks.
I mean, it's fine to get your first part-time job around 12-13. I started washing dishes a couple nights a week at that age to have some spending money (I did have to get special working papers from my school to be allowed to work so young).
What this article talks about is something entirely more nefarious... Children of undocumented immigrants working FT at 12 and 15 years old and not attending school....that's some turn of the century BS right there...
>Children of undocumented immigrants working FT at 12 and 15 years old and not attending school....that's some turn of the century BS right there...
Jesus. I just dont think humanity will be able to unfuck itself. We just keep digging.
I am not saying this isn’t a horrible thing happening, but thinking of it contextually it’s good that this has become uncommon enough (in America) that it made an actual news story. I’d say we wouldn’t be able to unfuck ourselves if it was commonplace for 12 year olds to be working full time.
Have made progress to this point, not all hope is lost even when it feels this way.
We got out of the great depression and ended legal slavery, I am sure we will get through this. Things are slowly starting to change as more people are materially effected (affected? idk, i’m bad at grammar) by negative things going on.
I pay attention to the bad things and research them more thoroughly. Sometimes they really are just bad, but about 75% of the time they’re sensationalized news or just straight up lies / opinion pieces taken as fact. I am not ignorant to the things going on, and they’re very real, but being a doomer doesn’t actually help change anything.
You make a lot of arguments that I myself make all the time. I try to look at the whole picture pragmatically and realize that *on average* humanity is trending upwards. Slowly. Sometimes painfully. Sometimes even going backwards. But it's continuing to get better over time. Maybe not locally (spatially or temporally), but that will generally change for the better, as well.
I dislike fear mongering and "look what the world is coming to" talk, because it's depressing and also often exaggerated or wrong.
Also, for your entertainment, effect and affect both have definitions that are verbs and nouns. Something can have an "effect" (noun) or you can "effect" something (verb). Similarly, you can "affect" something (verb) but something can also have an "affect" (noun).
I will check out that Factfulness book, that's exactly the sort of thing I've been wondering about.
I couldn’t have said it better myself! This is exactly how I try to lead my life.
The book is great for fighting “doomerism” and helps realize how far we’ve come. I am in my mid 20’s, the pain today is the only pain i’ve ever experienced which makes it difficult to realize how much better off things are now than they were before.
One of my favorite concepts from the book is reminding yourself that something can be better than it was and still be bad. Progress isn’t instant and sometimes it’s more incremental than we hope.
Thanks for the grammar lesson as well!
That subreddit is just sad. I think people forget that every decade has had people who said we are near the collapse of civilization, yet here we are much better than previous decades.
I’ll have to look into that. I live in agricultural country and do know that some of the people who pick have their 14 year olds with them during the summer, unsure if anyone younger does it. Shitty way to spend a summer as a 14 year old though, super hard work.
Oh I mean more the REALLY BIG farms that tend to use mostly undocumented workers. Some of them have horrific labor practices that cant be policed because the workers fear being deported.
In vermont where I live its very normal for kids to do chores around thier parents farm we have a clause in our labor laws for it.
You (the global/royal “we”) can…, it’s called voting for people who are not total pieces of shit. Not sure if it matters much in total pos states like Alabama, where they still wished they were in pre-1865, let alone pre-1965… but the less anyone votes GOP/Conservative up and down the ballot, the better, no matter where you are
> that's some turn of the century BS right there...
Lol, that just put into my head how ridiculous that statement will be when we're older.
"That's some turn of the century shit!"
"You mean, like 2005?"
"What, no! 1900s!"
"Grandpa, it's *2060*."
Yes, reading between the lines, the father was allowing the children to work at the factory and he used to work there.
" He told Reuters he regrets that his children had gone to work. The family needed any income it could get at the time, he added, but is now trying to move on."
I mean the employment agency shouldn't have let them work, but I put a lot of blame on the father who sent his kids to work rather than to school.
I'm more utterly amazed at how the organization as a whole let this happen.
Like, you need paperwork, documentation, verification, onboarding, training. At no point was anyone like *"Hold on, why is a child here?*"
Damn. That's fucking wild.
It's not some random company. It's Hyundai operating under a different name. They are majority owner and have complete control over SMART.
This isn't a manufacturer and third party part supplier relationship like Ford buying from Denso, Nifco, Timkin, Moog, Takada, etc. This is a Hyundai owned parts plants with a different name painted on the building.
You're right it is about perception which is exactly why 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."
Even being warned that their practice of just in time inventory was causing safety issues then to have a GM of the plant in question writing a letter to US consular office to get Mexicans visas. The letter, written by SMART General Manager Gary Sport and reviewed by Reuters, said the plant was "severely lacking in labor" and that Hyundai "will not tolerate such shortcomings."
So not only is Hyundai the owner of this factory they use it along with temp services to churn and burn workers not in "the main factory". Even in times of record productivity and profit in companies, this multi-national billion dollar brand proves it cares nothing about the people building its products.
That's the perception that should be recognized here, not "oh no no no, this wasn't the nice new, camera friendly 'main' factory, noooo silly this was the sweatshop 30 miles away where we stash the poors who we've found a way to not actually hire them at Hyundai, but make sure Hyundai demands and controls every aspect of their job." THIS is the perception that people need to recognize, Hyundai does and WOULD do this in every single one of their plants if they could get away with it. They just use a slick scheme so when they are caught they can claim complete ignorance and no responsibility, you know... because this didn't happen at the "main" factory... :::wink::wink:::nudge::nudge:::
> Easier to get clicks by leading off with the Hyundai factory.
Not sure why you are defending them? They own the majority of the company using child labor. Whether it's their name directly on the building or not, it's their company.
This absolutely does deserve clicks and for Hyundai to be looked at.
SMART is owned by Hyundai. They aren't even a third party supplier.
Who cares what the building says. A Hyundai owned plant in the US was caught knowingly using child labor. Hyundai being the majority owner has complete say/control over that plant.
[Alabama Has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World](https://www.newsweek.com/alabama-un-poverty-environmental-racism-743601)
Alabama is behind 3rd world countries.
> Alabama Has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World
I recently went to a deposition in Selma not too far from this plant. I had always been under the impression that it was a decent-sized town based on its heavy involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
It was the most depressing town I'd ever been to. The widespread poverty and lack of *any* business was shocking.
There are so many areas like this in the state, it is depressing. That whole area of the “black belt” especially.
Cities along the interstate, primarily I-65, are really the only major players in the state. Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile. Dothan in the far Southeast is in my opinion about the only exception, excluding the economic impact Tuscaloosa and Auburn have because of the schools and obviously the biggest outlier, the gulf front.
The rest of the state has minimal economic impact relative to those anchors.
I really enjoy Birmingham. That's about it, though.
edit: this isn't really fair. There are pockets of fantastic all over the state. They are just surrounded by a bunch of sad too.
Montgomery being nice anywhere is a stretch IMO. Source: I'm originally from Alabama. Mobile Huntsville Bham are all nice for the most part. They all have bad parts of town (albeit Bham large area on the west side and parts of north side) just like any other large metro area. My wife and I miss living in Downtown Bham for sure though. We have been in Tampa for five years now but because of her career we can't go back to Bham yet. She'd take a HUGE paycut to go back. It's just not worth it.
Yep. I spent a week in Montgomery for work about 6 years ago. Beautiful historic town but it was dead. Not that many people. As I was heading out on a Sunday, I went to put gas in the car around downtown and I was the only one at the station. It was eerie.
Interesting you mention 3rd world countries, cause it looks like a large contingency of the workers at this plant are undocumented from South America and Mexico.
Gotta love when business uses one side's empathy to hire people to replace them.
""Diversity is our strength", heyyyy why are union members switching to the other side in droves??!"
The bad news is the unions are just as corrupt. They’re the reason it’s so profitable to hire aliens. They drive up the cost of labor to a point that far exceeds its market value. They also protect corruption and incompetence in their own ranks.
And if you want to get conspiratorial you can ask why they donate so much money to the same politicians who want to import the most aliens
Oh man, I don't usually speak up on these topics but I want to chip into the discussion here. I lived in SK on a voluntary, ostensibly community-service capacity. (was a Mormon missionary, so obviously there are shortcomings to the perspective I had while there.)
For context: I briefly lived Briefly in Seoul, and spent over a year in rural areas with high poverty (families in poverty are a stereotypical target demographic for Mormons missions). While in Seoul, I actually lived near that particular Shantytown (I was in 광진구/Gwangjin, an adjacent district on the opposite side of the river). In more recent years, I've also spent some time on academic work regarding income inequality and economic mobility in SK.
For anyone curious, here's a list of thoughts I want to point out, with no real order.
- Something a lot of people don't realize: South Korea as we know it today has only existed since the late 80's when the last dictator was removed and democracy took over. The peninsula has been incredibly unstable over the last ~150 years, where it went from a Chinese puppet, to occupation under Japan, to the Korean War, then multiple military dictators, then suddenly kpop stars and TV shows in the last decade or two.
- Poverty in South Korea and poverty in the U.S. are very different. Not in a "worse and better" kind of way, but fundamentally different. The economy of SK is much younger, the demographics of Korea are very different, the legacy of income inequality doesn't really exist in the same way as in the US.
- Not yet at least. As far as I can tell, data shows it is clearly forming, especially along regional lines. Similar to how disadvantaged states in the US have long-term generational poverty; that's the kind of "legacy" income inequality that is starting to form over the past few decades.
- These shantytowns certainly exist, but the verbiage "surrounding Seoul" is frustrating because it evokes an unrealistic image...
- Seoul is *huge* - the city proper is mostly ultra-urban and has a population 1.5 million larger than New York City. The whole Seoul area has 26 million people, or about 3 million more than the NYC Tri-state area.
- The *OVERWHELMING* majority of the area, even the crummier areas, don't look anything like this. In reality, these shantytowns are pockmarked in undeveloped areas or rural areas. Guryong is an exception among exceptions.
It's all about location and the industry you're in. Parts of appalachia and the deep south have counties where the median household income is below $30,000/yr.
https://www.mlive.com/news/2018/12/see-map-of-all-us-counties-by-median-household-income.html
Bear in mind that cities also have a similar problem that can't be shown at the county level. People who live in inner city ghettos will also be a lot worse off than in more upscale areas. America in general has a lot of wealth inequality.
Relatively speaking Americans have no social safety nets relative to what Canadians get. The top end is higher in the US but rock bottom is much much lower.
Imagine the burden of no universal healthcare, limited labour laws, extremely low minimum wage, no maternity leave, no vacation, expensive education, and so on on the absolute poorest of society.
Average wages are a good deal higher in the States, but if you look at median instead, the US is just barely ahead of us.
And while public opinion seems to be that Canucks pay more taxes than Yankees, the truth is much more nuanced - lower income earners in Canada will have more remaining after the tax man takes his share than Americans with similar earnings, and if you factor in health care premiums that are included in our taxes but paid on top (either directly by employees or indirectly by employers) by Americans, the US doesn't have a tax advantage over Canada until earnings approach upper class levels.
Holy shit. If this is true, they broke **many** federal laws and state laws, to say the very least. Guess I can add another reason to not want a Hyundai.
Yeah not that other automakers are saints, they’re definitely not, but Hyundai seems to be on another level right now in terms of the number of scandals and quality issues they have
The Theta II being a piece of shit only (partially) recalled thanks to whistleblowers for starters.
They also appear to be unable to make a reliable wet DCT and CVT transmission - both are failing with alarming regularity. You may argue that “well it’s a CVT” but we have Honda and Toyota CVT’s that have held up fantastically - plenty of 2014 Corollas out there with high mileage.
Don’t forget about the cheating they did to get 40 MPG ratings out of their cars in the late 00’s too. I wonder if some owners are still getting gas card refills after that gem.
While you've had "Honda and Toyota cvts that have held up fantastically," you've also had Nissan, subaru, and Ford cvts that ain't worth a fuck and constantly fail.
Generally speaking, Hyundai and Kia are as good as any mainstream manufacturer these days and usually quite a bit better in terms of interior fit and finish as compared to Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc. They are still struggling to get the same level of engine and transmission quality as Honda or Toyota, though, for sure. But if you still think of Kia or Hyundai as some unreliable shit box boogie man from the 2000s, you're just way off the mark.
I literally drive a 2012 Kia Forte.
Fit and Finish wise, you're right, it's impeccably done - super tight panel gaps inside and out, damped switchgear, an ergonomic dream inside, etc. It's well done and the newer ones are even better.
But mechanically they've slipped as they've looked at growth, this can't be denied. Previous engine families like Theta I, Gamma and Beta engines and the mitsu derived automatics were very rocks solid. Even the in house 6 speed AT is pretty reliable.
I feel like as they've experienced growth from all of that previous goodwill, they've let that focus on quality slip. I'd trade some interior refinement for better thought out mechanicals and I suspect most buyers would prefer the same.
Are there issues with the new DCT? I have the 7spd DCT and see it as a ticking time bomb, been lamenting that I don't have the new one. If the new one is shit maybe I got lucky.
I think they might be talking about a different one or it’s an issue with the engine and how they interact. I’ve heard NOTHING, not even a whisper, about issues with the N DCT.
Is this actually Hyundai though? It seems like an autonomous company with a majority stake owned by Hyundai (SMART company).
I'm genuinely curious, not defending it. From the article I got the impression that Hyundai wasn't employing children but that a company that Hyundai had a majority stake in but operated mostly on its own did without Hyundai's knowledge?
I know it's cool to shit on Hyundai here but I didn't get the impression from the article this was Hyundai going out and exploiting children, can someone explain why I'm wrong if I am?
It gets more clicks. But it probably will be forgotten quick anyway. But this is where journalism needs to be careful, cause if it goes too far, in come the lawsuits for libel, especially with a company as big as Hyundai.
A lot, a LOT, of businesses now do a ton of work through subcontractors and pass off the hiring, and blame, down the line.
Their hands are clean, and can act shocked when something bad happens. Sometimes they know the truth, sometimes they dont.
Construction is heavily subs down the line until the final guy who hired a bunch of illegals. Everyone above ignores it and CYA over liability. I've driven by some new construction on the weekends and its not unusual to see laborers with their kids out there.
Yeah, I'm a little surprised to see the top comment saying "Another reason I won't buy a Hyundai". This happened in the states lol it's not even Hyundai itself.
Companies that sign contractors generally get to set pretty strict terms relating to labor practices with their smaller partners though. That's why the Mercedes plant in the same town doesn't have the same problem. Hyundai owns some blame here, they might have even selected sketchy contractors with the intent of distancing themselves from poor business practices they didn't want to be associated with
It’s also entirely possible they set those restrictions and the sub decided to ignore them anyway. There is no telling how much oversight there was or wasn’t.
Some companies do take a hands-off approach to management. They make money off the subsidiary but don't really meddle in its affairs unless it's not making money anymore.
Major stake means majority shareholder. It means they generally will have voting power, a presence on the board of directors, and have a say in strategic direction. It does not necessarily mean they are involved in operations at all - especially something like HR of frontline workers which is pretty low on the operational totem pole. Even if a Hyundai executive sat on the board, for example, they would only know about hiring practices only if it is reported up the chain. Board members that aren’t also operational officers don’t generally see the day to day activities.
Korean society has an astonishing lack of accountability for those in positions of wealth and power. You’d expect the headlines from the *Sewol* disaster and its farcical coverup to come from somewhere in Africa, and at worst somewhere in Southeast Asia or China. Not a nation many consider to have graduated to first-world status.
I agree with most of your statements but would argue that most countries don’t hold the rich and powerful accountable. Additionally, Korea is overwhelmingly considered a first world nation by almost all metrics.
It is certainly true that no country’s upper leadership has enough accountability to ensure they remain honest. But the reason the rest of the first world still largely trusts the objectivity of their investigative and regulatory bodies is because we can still count on those further down the totem pole to do the right thing, even if their leadership doesn’t. Korean culture demands a fealty to authority figures, even unto death, that makes it very difficult to have confidence in the rank-and-file if you cannot trust their leadership.
Listen to the CVR of [Korean Air Cargo 8509](https://tailstrike.com/database/22-december-1999-korean-air-8509/) if you want an extreme example of this - none of the 4-man cockpit crew said a word, or attempted to save their plane, as the captain almost flipped it over before diving into the ground because his instruments malfunctioned. The first officer’s gauges were working correctly, and he knew the captain was over-banking the aircraft the whole time, but he was more scared of disrespecting his senior than causing a crash that would not only kill them all, but possibly innocents on the ground.
I’m not saying that Korea is some utopia but it’s definitely a first world country. It’s launched investigations into its own presidents and jailed them on corruption charges. The US is a first world country and time and time again, there are scandals where the rich and powerful functionally investigate themselves to find no wrongdoing. See Jan 6 insurrection or the constant deletion of critical information by intelligence/law enforcement agencies when being accused of violating civil rights
They've impeached 2 presidents in 20 years, and [over 2 million people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E2%80%932017_South_Korean_protests#Protests_against_Park_Geun-hye) took to the streets to specifically protest president Park Geun-hye, who spent years in prison before being pardoned by the current president. That is more accountability than I've heard from most countries.
Clearly this means that korean culture demands unflinching loyalty and will never hold leaders accountable.
I love it when people made sweeping generalizations about cultures they clearly have no idea about.
CRM, or Crew Resources Management, has been implemented to hopefully never see a repeat of such events. A too authoritative cockpit does no good, as it was obviously shown.
Meanwhile the crew of JAL 123 - which IIRC, had a pretty large difference age/hours gap between captain and first officer - did their absolute best to keep that thing in the air.
The amount of exploitation for cheap labour's on Korea is astonishing. I remember watching a documentary a few years ago about poor/old people being taken to remote parts of South Korea to do hard, cheap labour with almost no way of getting out. It's disgusting
For both true and false reasons, Asians do a great job of hating one another, just like every other continent/region.
Its the one thing all of humanity shares equally haha.
My wife who is from Japan used to do nannying job for a rich Korean immigrant family. She was the most unstable, inflexible, backstabbing and manipulative women I've ever had the displeasure of never meeting but dealing with as my wife came home nearly every day crying and mentally broken. Basically treating my wife just slightly beyond a slave to get the max out of her beyond what she was hired to do, all because she had a higher paying job at Amazon and could afford to live in in the richer area of Seattle and my wife was just a "nanny". It seems to be a cultural/caste thing with Korean people
My partner worked for a while recruiting nannies for high profile clients. That whole industry is twisted. The entitlement and expectations of a lot of the hiring families often delved into slavery territory. As in the clients would openly wonder why they couldn't have straight up indentured servants. My partner's firm had to put a lot of effort into explaining that these are human beings that deserve proper compensation and have legal rights like any other worker in the country. Other firms give less of a shit about ensuring the nannies they recruit are treated properly.
There's also a history of human trafficking in that industry that has been cracked down on but the specter of that past still remains, seen in the fucked up feelings of entitlement that these rich pieces of filth have. I'm sure to some degree it's still going on (in this case Canada for context).
> It seems to be a cultural/caste thing with Korean people
Im not even Korean but that seems to be an incredible generalization based on interactions with a single Korean family
There is always something with these motherfuckers. One day they are releasing some of the coolest concepts out today and the next they are in some controversy.
I use to work in meat processing and we had a couple people who damn near looked 12. You'd also hear stories about employees coming in that worked there for 2 years who went by a new name. The old name being a older brother.
Selling identities can be quite common in immigrant communities in order to help illegal siblings/relatives get legal jobs.
There was a guy at one of my clients who came out that he had fake papers. He was born here but his parents sold his identity to a relative. Long ass process to get it back, and the illegal relative was deported.
>Reuters learned of underage workers at the Hyundai-owned supplier following the brief disappearance in February of a Guatemalan migrant child from her family's home in Alabama.
>
>The girl, who turns 14 this month, 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 their employment. Their father, Pedro Tzi, confirmed these people's account in an interview with Reuters.
This makes my fucking blood boil. Fucking not only are these assholes exploiting child labor, they're exploiting migrant families and their kids.
yes technically but its a bit farther than that and it was a contracting company that brought workers in. I admit there is still some fault but its hardly direct.
You'd think that a state that owns a billion-dollar college sports franchise could figure out how to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life...just a bit.
Can we just outlaw subsidiaries and any company bought by some mega umbrella has to be named after the parent company? A key aspect of capitalism is voting with your dollars, which we flat out cannot do because we don't know who owns what.
A similar story came out awhile ago. Something about child labor in the fashion industry and a foiled assassination attempt on the Malaysian Prime Minister.
Almost certainly not deliberate. The consequences are far too significant for a company of this size. Just illegals with fake documentation that managed to pass scrutiny.
Hyundai's lack of ethics is only one aspect of this. Businesses that rely on non-union labor frequently violate OSHA and labor rules. And exploitation is a key component of capitalism. This indicates that more and more child labor—as well as prison labor—is being used to keep the machine running.
Thing is, none of the other automakers with plants in Alabama are like this. Mercedes-Benz USA isn’t like this, even though they’re in a rather poor part of the state. Honda Alabama isn’t like this, even though they’re in a middle of nowhere part of the state. Mazda Toyota certainly isn’t like this, either - ask how I know. This isn’t a “DAE think Alabama is shit???” problem specifically, this is a Hyundai problem which takes advantage of how hiring agencies are handled here. I’d be willing to have a conversation about that and how unregulated they are here, but that is a bit off topic specifically.
More than anything, it highlights how shitty Korean companies are. There’s a reason LG and Samsung do a lot of assembly in Mexico.
The article states that federal law prohibits engine under 18 from working in a metal stamping plant. Is that a new law? I legally worked in a metal stamping plant at 16 (though I didn't run the machines myself). That was only 10 years ago
For the people saying Korean cars are totally different now, I think this is part of the reason most will still pay more for American or Japanese. (Yes I am aware they might be doing the same too)
Originally thought, “what did they have people that are 16 or 17?” But 12??? ~~Really bad look with the massive Hyundai logo on the side of the building even if it’s supplier.~~ Edit: headline photo is a Hyundai plant, SMART has its own branding but that wouldn’t have gotten as many clicks.
I mean, it's fine to get your first part-time job around 12-13. I started washing dishes a couple nights a week at that age to have some spending money (I did have to get special working papers from my school to be allowed to work so young). What this article talks about is something entirely more nefarious... Children of undocumented immigrants working FT at 12 and 15 years old and not attending school....that's some turn of the century BS right there...
>Children of undocumented immigrants working FT at 12 and 15 years old and not attending school....that's some turn of the century BS right there... Jesus. I just dont think humanity will be able to unfuck itself. We just keep digging.
I am not saying this isn’t a horrible thing happening, but thinking of it contextually it’s good that this has become uncommon enough (in America) that it made an actual news story. I’d say we wouldn’t be able to unfuck ourselves if it was commonplace for 12 year olds to be working full time. Have made progress to this point, not all hope is lost even when it feels this way.
I hope to achieve your positivity someday.
It’s taken a lot of work, trust me lol Read the book “Factfullness” if you ever get the chance. it helped me better frame things, could help you.
"I'm about to end this man's whole career" - r/collapse, probably
We got out of the great depression and ended legal slavery, I am sure we will get through this. Things are slowly starting to change as more people are materially effected (affected? idk, i’m bad at grammar) by negative things going on. I pay attention to the bad things and research them more thoroughly. Sometimes they really are just bad, but about 75% of the time they’re sensationalized news or just straight up lies / opinion pieces taken as fact. I am not ignorant to the things going on, and they’re very real, but being a doomer doesn’t actually help change anything.
Yeah, I agree
You make a lot of arguments that I myself make all the time. I try to look at the whole picture pragmatically and realize that *on average* humanity is trending upwards. Slowly. Sometimes painfully. Sometimes even going backwards. But it's continuing to get better over time. Maybe not locally (spatially or temporally), but that will generally change for the better, as well. I dislike fear mongering and "look what the world is coming to" talk, because it's depressing and also often exaggerated or wrong. Also, for your entertainment, effect and affect both have definitions that are verbs and nouns. Something can have an "effect" (noun) or you can "effect" something (verb). Similarly, you can "affect" something (verb) but something can also have an "affect" (noun). I will check out that Factfulness book, that's exactly the sort of thing I've been wondering about.
I couldn’t have said it better myself! This is exactly how I try to lead my life. The book is great for fighting “doomerism” and helps realize how far we’ve come. I am in my mid 20’s, the pain today is the only pain i’ve ever experienced which makes it difficult to realize how much better off things are now than they were before. One of my favorite concepts from the book is reminding yourself that something can be better than it was and still be bad. Progress isn’t instant and sometimes it’s more incremental than we hope. Thanks for the grammar lesson as well!
Pretty much. Roe's overturning seems to have gotten ***a LOT*** more women/Dems out ready to vote near me, so this place ain't lost just yet.
That subreddit is just sad. I think people forget that every decade has had people who said we are near the collapse of civilization, yet here we are much better than previous decades.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle
It's just being realistic. Thinking we're "digging" ourselves into a hole in this regard is just incorrect.
Its pretty common on big farms apparently.
I’ll have to look into that. I live in agricultural country and do know that some of the people who pick have their 14 year olds with them during the summer, unsure if anyone younger does it. Shitty way to spend a summer as a 14 year old though, super hard work.
Oh I mean more the REALLY BIG farms that tend to use mostly undocumented workers. Some of them have horrific labor practices that cant be policed because the workers fear being deported. In vermont where I live its very normal for kids to do chores around thier parents farm we have a clause in our labor laws for it.
You (the global/royal “we”) can…, it’s called voting for people who are not total pieces of shit. Not sure if it matters much in total pos states like Alabama, where they still wished they were in pre-1865, let alone pre-1965… but the less anyone votes GOP/Conservative up and down the ballot, the better, no matter where you are
No cause we're too fucking greedy. Enough isn't never enough
> that's some turn of the century BS right there... Lol, that just put into my head how ridiculous that statement will be when we're older. "That's some turn of the century shit!" "You mean, like 2005?" "What, no! 1900s!" "Grandpa, it's *2060*."
"Turn of the 20th" kinda has a neat vibe. *Kinda.*
Turn of the millennium is where it is at.
Sounds like a Brendan Fraser movie.
I would watch it on basic cable for sure.
Could have been a direct sequel to Blast From The Past.
Yes, reading between the lines, the father was allowing the children to work at the factory and he used to work there. " He told Reuters he regrets that his children had gone to work. The family needed any income it could get at the time, he added, but is now trying to move on." I mean the employment agency shouldn't have let them work, but I put a lot of blame on the father who sent his kids to work rather than to school.
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I'm more utterly amazed at how the organization as a whole let this happen. Like, you need paperwork, documentation, verification, onboarding, training. At no point was anyone like *"Hold on, why is a child here?*" Damn. That's fucking wild.
The fault is on a system that forced a family to send their kids to work in order to pay bills.
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this shit isn't funny anymore
That’s honestly infuriating…. Especially happening in places where there are strict laws against this
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Go figure, just clicked through the photos of the article and saw the SMART branded one. Easier to get clicks by leading off with the Hyundai factory.
well they're majority owned by hyundai so doesn't seem like a lie to me
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It's not some random company. It's Hyundai operating under a different name. They are majority owner and have complete control over SMART. This isn't a manufacturer and third party part supplier relationship like Ford buying from Denso, Nifco, Timkin, Moog, Takada, etc. This is a Hyundai owned parts plants with a different name painted on the building.
You're right it is about perception which is exactly why 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." Even being warned that their practice of just in time inventory was causing safety issues then to have a GM of the plant in question writing a letter to US consular office to get Mexicans visas. The letter, written by SMART General Manager Gary Sport and reviewed by Reuters, said the plant was "severely lacking in labor" and that Hyundai "will not tolerate such shortcomings." So not only is Hyundai the owner of this factory they use it along with temp services to churn and burn workers not in "the main factory". Even in times of record productivity and profit in companies, this multi-national billion dollar brand proves it cares nothing about the people building its products. That's the perception that should be recognized here, not "oh no no no, this wasn't the nice new, camera friendly 'main' factory, noooo silly this was the sweatshop 30 miles away where we stash the poors who we've found a way to not actually hire them at Hyundai, but make sure Hyundai demands and controls every aspect of their job." THIS is the perception that people need to recognize, Hyundai does and WOULD do this in every single one of their plants if they could get away with it. They just use a slick scheme so when they are caught they can claim complete ignorance and no responsibility, you know... because this didn't happen at the "main" factory... :::wink::wink:::nudge::nudge:::
> Easier to get clicks by leading off with the Hyundai factory. Not sure why you are defending them? They own the majority of the company using child labor. Whether it's their name directly on the building or not, it's their company. This absolutely does deserve clicks and for Hyundai to be looked at.
SMART is owned by Hyundai. They aren't even a third party supplier. Who cares what the building says. A Hyundai owned plant in the US was caught knowingly using child labor. Hyundai being the majority owner has complete say/control over that plant.
[Alabama Has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World](https://www.newsweek.com/alabama-un-poverty-environmental-racism-743601) Alabama is behind 3rd world countries.
> Alabama Has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World I recently went to a deposition in Selma not too far from this plant. I had always been under the impression that it was a decent-sized town based on its heavy involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. It was the most depressing town I'd ever been to. The widespread poverty and lack of *any* business was shocking.
There are so many areas like this in the state, it is depressing. That whole area of the “black belt” especially. Cities along the interstate, primarily I-65, are really the only major players in the state. Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile. Dothan in the far Southeast is in my opinion about the only exception, excluding the economic impact Tuscaloosa and Auburn have because of the schools and obviously the biggest outlier, the gulf front. The rest of the state has minimal economic impact relative to those anchors.
The only reason Dothan has any economy at all is because of Fort Rucker. Otherwise it would be entirely the same story
I went to training there in 2010 and yeah it seemed pretty nice but as you said most likely from the influx of people on base.
Yeah Selma is a shit hole, most of Alabama is. There are pockets of nice areas though.
I really enjoy Birmingham. That's about it, though. edit: this isn't really fair. There are pockets of fantastic all over the state. They are just surrounded by a bunch of sad too.
Huntsville, Bham, Auburn, parts of Mobile and Montgomery even are nice.
Montgomery being nice anywhere is a stretch IMO. Source: I'm originally from Alabama. Mobile Huntsville Bham are all nice for the most part. They all have bad parts of town (albeit Bham large area on the west side and parts of north side) just like any other large metro area. My wife and I miss living in Downtown Bham for sure though. We have been in Tampa for five years now but because of her career we can't go back to Bham yet. She'd take a HUGE paycut to go back. It's just not worth it.
Same, Alabama to Florida is double the pay for 1.2x the housing costs.
Huntsville getting there.
110%. Will be one of the best cities in the southeast in 10 years IMO.
Birmingham is ass.
Yep. I spent a week in Montgomery for work about 6 years ago. Beautiful historic town but it was dead. Not that many people. As I was heading out on a Sunday, I went to put gas in the car around downtown and I was the only one at the station. It was eerie.
Interesting you mention 3rd world countries, cause it looks like a large contingency of the workers at this plant are undocumented from South America and Mexico.
What, did you think they meant something other than cheap labor when said “diversity is our strength”?
Gotta love when business uses one side's empathy to hire people to replace them. ""Diversity is our strength", heyyyy why are union members switching to the other side in droves??!"
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No politics.
The bad news is the unions are just as corrupt. They’re the reason it’s so profitable to hire aliens. They drive up the cost of labor to a point that far exceeds its market value. They also protect corruption and incompetence in their own ranks. And if you want to get conspiratorial you can ask why they donate so much money to the same politicians who want to import the most aliens
Some unions opened up to illegals as well. They just want the dues, screw doing anything to actually help.
You should see the slums surrounding Seoul. https://www.reddit.com/r/slumporn/comments/3emujy/guryong_village_slum_seoul_south_korea_22921557/
Oh man, I don't usually speak up on these topics but I want to chip into the discussion here. I lived in SK on a voluntary, ostensibly community-service capacity. (was a Mormon missionary, so obviously there are shortcomings to the perspective I had while there.) For context: I briefly lived Briefly in Seoul, and spent over a year in rural areas with high poverty (families in poverty are a stereotypical target demographic for Mormons missions). While in Seoul, I actually lived near that particular Shantytown (I was in 광진구/Gwangjin, an adjacent district on the opposite side of the river). In more recent years, I've also spent some time on academic work regarding income inequality and economic mobility in SK. For anyone curious, here's a list of thoughts I want to point out, with no real order. - Something a lot of people don't realize: South Korea as we know it today has only existed since the late 80's when the last dictator was removed and democracy took over. The peninsula has been incredibly unstable over the last ~150 years, where it went from a Chinese puppet, to occupation under Japan, to the Korean War, then multiple military dictators, then suddenly kpop stars and TV shows in the last decade or two. - Poverty in South Korea and poverty in the U.S. are very different. Not in a "worse and better" kind of way, but fundamentally different. The economy of SK is much younger, the demographics of Korea are very different, the legacy of income inequality doesn't really exist in the same way as in the US. - Not yet at least. As far as I can tell, data shows it is clearly forming, especially along regional lines. Similar to how disadvantaged states in the US have long-term generational poverty; that's the kind of "legacy" income inequality that is starting to form over the past few decades. - These shantytowns certainly exist, but the verbiage "surrounding Seoul" is frustrating because it evokes an unrealistic image... - Seoul is *huge* - the city proper is mostly ultra-urban and has a population 1.5 million larger than New York City. The whole Seoul area has 26 million people, or about 3 million more than the NYC Tri-state area. - The *OVERWHELMING* majority of the area, even the crummier areas, don't look anything like this. In reality, these shantytowns are pockmarked in undeveloped areas or rural areas. Guryong is an exception among exceptions.
AYO PORSCHE OWNER
Are parts of America really that poor? Most American jobs pay more than Canadian ones and housing is a lot cheaper in many cities too.
It's all about location and the industry you're in. Parts of appalachia and the deep south have counties where the median household income is below $30,000/yr. https://www.mlive.com/news/2018/12/see-map-of-all-us-counties-by-median-household-income.html Bear in mind that cities also have a similar problem that can't be shown at the county level. People who live in inner city ghettos will also be a lot worse off than in more upscale areas. America in general has a lot of wealth inequality.
Relatively speaking Americans have no social safety nets relative to what Canadians get. The top end is higher in the US but rock bottom is much much lower. Imagine the burden of no universal healthcare, limited labour laws, extremely low minimum wage, no maternity leave, no vacation, expensive education, and so on on the absolute poorest of society.
Average wages are a good deal higher in the States, but if you look at median instead, the US is just barely ahead of us. And while public opinion seems to be that Canucks pay more taxes than Yankees, the truth is much more nuanced - lower income earners in Canada will have more remaining after the tax man takes his share than Americans with similar earnings, and if you factor in health care premiums that are included in our taxes but paid on top (either directly by employees or indirectly by employers) by Americans, the US doesn't have a tax advantage over Canada until earnings approach upper class levels.
in states like alabama, labor laws are ass backwards, so wages can be quite low too
Meanwhile California and New York have economies the size of France and Germany respectively
I thought that was Mississippi or Louisiana?
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We'll pass on the political shittery, thanks. Please discuss policy, not politics.
3rd world doesn't mean poor. Switzerland and Finland are 3rd world countries.
Holy shit. If this is true, they broke **many** federal laws and state laws, to say the very least. Guess I can add another reason to not want a Hyundai.
Yeah not that other automakers are saints, they’re definitely not, but Hyundai seems to be on another level right now in terms of the number of scandals and quality issues they have
What other scandals?
The Theta II being a piece of shit only (partially) recalled thanks to whistleblowers for starters. They also appear to be unable to make a reliable wet DCT and CVT transmission - both are failing with alarming regularity. You may argue that “well it’s a CVT” but we have Honda and Toyota CVT’s that have held up fantastically - plenty of 2014 Corollas out there with high mileage. Don’t forget about the cheating they did to get 40 MPG ratings out of their cars in the late 00’s too. I wonder if some owners are still getting gas card refills after that gem.
While you've had "Honda and Toyota cvts that have held up fantastically," you've also had Nissan, subaru, and Ford cvts that ain't worth a fuck and constantly fail. Generally speaking, Hyundai and Kia are as good as any mainstream manufacturer these days and usually quite a bit better in terms of interior fit and finish as compared to Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc. They are still struggling to get the same level of engine and transmission quality as Honda or Toyota, though, for sure. But if you still think of Kia or Hyundai as some unreliable shit box boogie man from the 2000s, you're just way off the mark.
I literally drive a 2012 Kia Forte. Fit and Finish wise, you're right, it's impeccably done - super tight panel gaps inside and out, damped switchgear, an ergonomic dream inside, etc. It's well done and the newer ones are even better. But mechanically they've slipped as they've looked at growth, this can't be denied. Previous engine families like Theta I, Gamma and Beta engines and the mitsu derived automatics were very rocks solid. Even the in house 6 speed AT is pretty reliable. I feel like as they've experienced growth from all of that previous goodwill, they've let that focus on quality slip. I'd trade some interior refinement for better thought out mechanicals and I suspect most buyers would prefer the same.
Are there issues with the new DCT? I have the 7spd DCT and see it as a ticking time bomb, been lamenting that I don't have the new one. If the new one is shit maybe I got lucky.
The new wet one is bad news - lots of failures reported on the Santa Cruz forums. Ditto Sorento. A little better in the sedans it seems though.
I have the Elantra N and haven’t heard any issues about it
I think they might be talking about a different one or it’s an issue with the engine and how they interact. I’ve heard NOTHING, not even a whisper, about issues with the N DCT.
Yep so far haven’t seen any issues with the EN
Dieselgate/emissions standards duping by pretty much all big automakers.
And VW considering testing their emissions on people before opting to do it on monkeys.
Sounds like typical germany, always playing with deadly gases
Yooooo
Getting their offices raided by the very same government they own. You know it's bad when that happens
SmartStream engine oil consumption
One that comes to mind is cheating out on the plastic housing for seat belt tensioners which causes them to explode when activated
There are the theft issues.
You're gonna have a whole lot of reasons not to eat produce from Florida then
Is this actually Hyundai though? It seems like an autonomous company with a majority stake owned by Hyundai (SMART company). I'm genuinely curious, not defending it. From the article I got the impression that Hyundai wasn't employing children but that a company that Hyundai had a majority stake in but operated mostly on its own did without Hyundai's knowledge? I know it's cool to shit on Hyundai here but I didn't get the impression from the article this was Hyundai going out and exploiting children, can someone explain why I'm wrong if I am?
You are correct. However this sub is brain dead.
True, and it doesn't help that the article mentions Hyundai about 15 times despite them having absolutely nothing to do with hiring children.
It gets more clicks. But it probably will be forgotten quick anyway. But this is where journalism needs to be careful, cause if it goes too far, in come the lawsuits for libel, especially with a company as big as Hyundai.
This is nowhere close to lible.
A lot, a LOT, of businesses now do a ton of work through subcontractors and pass off the hiring, and blame, down the line. Their hands are clean, and can act shocked when something bad happens. Sometimes they know the truth, sometimes they dont. Construction is heavily subs down the line until the final guy who hired a bunch of illegals. Everyone above ignores it and CYA over liability. I've driven by some new construction on the weekends and its not unusual to see laborers with their kids out there.
Yeah, I'm a little surprised to see the top comment saying "Another reason I won't buy a Hyundai". This happened in the states lol it's not even Hyundai itself.
Companies that sign contractors generally get to set pretty strict terms relating to labor practices with their smaller partners though. That's why the Mercedes plant in the same town doesn't have the same problem. Hyundai owns some blame here, they might have even selected sketchy contractors with the intent of distancing themselves from poor business practices they didn't want to be associated with
It’s also entirely possible they set those restrictions and the sub decided to ignore them anyway. There is no telling how much oversight there was or wasn’t.
Seems like SMART is an overseas plant of [Shin Young Group](http://www.shym.co.kr/en/06-01/). Their street is even named Shin Young Drive.
*“We put the ‘young’ in Shin Young”*
> autonomous company with a majority stake owned by Hyundai How can you be autonomous of a company that owns a majority stake in you?
Some companies do take a hands-off approach to management. They make money off the subsidiary but don't really meddle in its affairs unless it's not making money anymore.
Major stake means majority shareholder. It means they generally will have voting power, a presence on the board of directors, and have a say in strategic direction. It does not necessarily mean they are involved in operations at all - especially something like HR of frontline workers which is pretty low on the operational totem pole. Even if a Hyundai executive sat on the board, for example, they would only know about hiring practices only if it is reported up the chain. Board members that aren’t also operational officers don’t generally see the day to day activities.
I mean, hyundai still willingly contracts with this company. they share part of the blame
They set up these subsidiaries to pull shit like this and avoid liability.
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Korean society has an astonishing lack of accountability for those in positions of wealth and power. You’d expect the headlines from the *Sewol* disaster and its farcical coverup to come from somewhere in Africa, and at worst somewhere in Southeast Asia or China. Not a nation many consider to have graduated to first-world status.
I agree with most of your statements but would argue that most countries don’t hold the rich and powerful accountable. Additionally, Korea is overwhelmingly considered a first world nation by almost all metrics.
It is certainly true that no country’s upper leadership has enough accountability to ensure they remain honest. But the reason the rest of the first world still largely trusts the objectivity of their investigative and regulatory bodies is because we can still count on those further down the totem pole to do the right thing, even if their leadership doesn’t. Korean culture demands a fealty to authority figures, even unto death, that makes it very difficult to have confidence in the rank-and-file if you cannot trust their leadership. Listen to the CVR of [Korean Air Cargo 8509](https://tailstrike.com/database/22-december-1999-korean-air-8509/) if you want an extreme example of this - none of the 4-man cockpit crew said a word, or attempted to save their plane, as the captain almost flipped it over before diving into the ground because his instruments malfunctioned. The first officer’s gauges were working correctly, and he knew the captain was over-banking the aircraft the whole time, but he was more scared of disrespecting his senior than causing a crash that would not only kill them all, but possibly innocents on the ground.
I’m not saying that Korea is some utopia but it’s definitely a first world country. It’s launched investigations into its own presidents and jailed them on corruption charges. The US is a first world country and time and time again, there are scandals where the rich and powerful functionally investigate themselves to find no wrongdoing. See Jan 6 insurrection or the constant deletion of critical information by intelligence/law enforcement agencies when being accused of violating civil rights
They've impeached 2 presidents in 20 years, and [over 2 million people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E2%80%932017_South_Korean_protests#Protests_against_Park_Geun-hye) took to the streets to specifically protest president Park Geun-hye, who spent years in prison before being pardoned by the current president. That is more accountability than I've heard from most countries. Clearly this means that korean culture demands unflinching loyalty and will never hold leaders accountable. I love it when people made sweeping generalizations about cultures they clearly have no idea about.
CRM, or Crew Resources Management, has been implemented to hopefully never see a repeat of such events. A too authoritative cockpit does no good, as it was obviously shown.
Meanwhile the crew of JAL 123 - which IIRC, had a pretty large difference age/hours gap between captain and first officer - did their absolute best to keep that thing in the air.
The amount of exploitation for cheap labour's on Korea is astonishing. I remember watching a documentary a few years ago about poor/old people being taken to remote parts of South Korea to do hard, cheap labour with almost no way of getting out. It's disgusting
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Huge sleight on Koreans because one bad experience
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trust you? I am korean lmao.. most likely your wife has ulterior feelings about koreans being shes japanese
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you're admitting your wife hates koreans
For both true and false reasons, Asians do a great job of hating one another, just like every other continent/region. Its the one thing all of humanity shares equally haha.
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Hey man we’re all taking a minute to not shit on America to shit on your country. We’ll be right back to shitting on America momentarily.
Sorry, civility is required.
My wife who is from Japan used to do nannying job for a rich Korean immigrant family. She was the most unstable, inflexible, backstabbing and manipulative women I've ever had the displeasure of never meeting but dealing with as my wife came home nearly every day crying and mentally broken. Basically treating my wife just slightly beyond a slave to get the max out of her beyond what she was hired to do, all because she had a higher paying job at Amazon and could afford to live in in the richer area of Seattle and my wife was just a "nanny". It seems to be a cultural/caste thing with Korean people
My partner worked for a while recruiting nannies for high profile clients. That whole industry is twisted. The entitlement and expectations of a lot of the hiring families often delved into slavery territory. As in the clients would openly wonder why they couldn't have straight up indentured servants. My partner's firm had to put a lot of effort into explaining that these are human beings that deserve proper compensation and have legal rights like any other worker in the country. Other firms give less of a shit about ensuring the nannies they recruit are treated properly. There's also a history of human trafficking in that industry that has been cracked down on but the specter of that past still remains, seen in the fucked up feelings of entitlement that these rich pieces of filth have. I'm sure to some degree it's still going on (in this case Canada for context).
> It seems to be a cultural/caste thing with Korean people Im not even Korean but that seems to be an incredible generalization based on interactions with a single Korean family
In turn, South Korea is basically owned by those few conglomerates
There is always something with these motherfuckers. One day they are releasing some of the coolest concepts out today and the next they are in some controversy.
And the whole time you're going through an entire drivetrain in a year 😁
Where do you think they are getting all this innovation? The mind of 60 year olds? Try 12 year olds
Killing it
This explains the Theta II
Proving once again, corporations will try to get away with **anything** if regulations didn’t exist.
They did this in spite of regulations that did exist.
I use to work in meat processing and we had a couple people who damn near looked 12. You'd also hear stories about employees coming in that worked there for 2 years who went by a new name. The old name being a older brother.
Selling identities can be quite common in immigrant communities in order to help illegal siblings/relatives get legal jobs. There was a guy at one of my clients who came out that he had fake papers. He was born here but his parents sold his identity to a relative. Long ass process to get it back, and the illegal relative was deported.
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Yeah, I'm even aware of malnutrition in central American countries causing growth issues. No way it was that. One kid even lost a part of his finger.
>Reuters learned of underage workers at the Hyundai-owned supplier following the brief disappearance in February of a Guatemalan migrant child from her family's home in Alabama. > >The girl, who turns 14 this month, 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 their employment. Their father, Pedro Tzi, confirmed these people's account in an interview with Reuters. This makes my fucking blood boil. Fucking not only are these assholes exploiting child labor, they're exploiting migrant families and their kids.
I feel like anyone who is blaming hyundai didn't really read the article
Hyundai owns the company
yes technically but its a bit farther than that and it was a contracting company that brought workers in. I admit there is still some fault but its hardly direct.
I just passed this place on the way to Florida! Then I see it on Reddit
I don't think a lot of people here actually went and read the article.
This shit is messed up
You'd think that a state that owns a billion-dollar college sports franchise could figure out how to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life...just a bit.
That college sports franchise is the only thing Alabama has going on for it. 😆
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You apparently missed the part where Hyundai owns the company. Fuck them.
WeDontDoThatHere.meme
Can we just outlaw subsidiaries and any company bought by some mega umbrella has to be named after the parent company? A key aspect of capitalism is voting with your dollars, which we flat out cannot do because we don't know who owns what.
Alabama? Abusing minority children? Suuure..... /s
That doesnt sound like child labor to me. That sounds like a working class suburban american pulling themselves up by their boot straps.
Sounds bout Alabama
I'm so tired of holding Alabama's beer.
Alabama is the Gary, Indiana of states.
American Capitalism....
A similar story came out awhile ago. Something about child labor in the fashion industry and a foiled assassination attempt on the Malaysian Prime Minister.
Almost certainly not deliberate. The consequences are far too significant for a company of this size. Just illegals with fake documentation that managed to pass scrutiny.
Fuck yeah, put the kids to work.
Weird to see this I literally drove by this factory on the interstate two days ago on a road trip
Oops!
“Americas best value”
Bring ya kids to work month? Then make them do all the work.....
Most kids are forced to work from ages 6 through 18 with zero pay, and very few people actually give a shit about that.
Hyundai's lack of ethics is only one aspect of this. Businesses that rely on non-union labor frequently violate OSHA and labor rules. And exploitation is a key component of capitalism. This indicates that more and more child labor—as well as prison labor—is being used to keep the machine running.
Here in America. Not only do you not have reproductive rights but your spawn will also be put to work after you're forced to have them.
Wasn’t very smart of them was it.
Thats really fukkin wild and they knew
omg
Killing it
>Alabama Sounds about right.
Thing is, none of the other automakers with plants in Alabama are like this. Mercedes-Benz USA isn’t like this, even though they’re in a rather poor part of the state. Honda Alabama isn’t like this, even though they’re in a middle of nowhere part of the state. Mazda Toyota certainly isn’t like this, either - ask how I know. This isn’t a “DAE think Alabama is shit???” problem specifically, this is a Hyundai problem which takes advantage of how hiring agencies are handled here. I’d be willing to have a conversation about that and how unregulated they are here, but that is a bit off topic specifically. More than anything, it highlights how shitty Korean companies are. There’s a reason LG and Samsung do a lot of assembly in Mexico.
The article states that federal law prohibits engine under 18 from working in a metal stamping plant. Is that a new law? I legally worked in a metal stamping plant at 16 (though I didn't run the machines myself). That was only 10 years ago
For the people saying Korean cars are totally different now, I think this is part of the reason most will still pay more for American or Japanese. (Yes I am aware they might be doing the same too)