"Exclusive: Hyundai to divest Alabama subsidiary following child labor revelations", 26 February 2023

...Hyundai Motor Co...told shareholders that it would divest its controlling stake in a major Alabama auto parts plant where Reuters last year documented children as young as 12 were working.

In a February 24 letter to shareholders from Hyundai Chief Executive Jaehoon Chang, the company said recent audits at 29 of its direct suppliers across Alabama made it confident they are “now in full compliance with underage labour laws.”

The audits began last August, after Reuters first reported on the issue, and were conducted by an outside law firm that reviewed documents and did on-site inspections...

Hyundai also told investors it was implementing extensive new corporate measures, including a training program for its parts suppliers to begin next month in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL), to prevent future child labour violations...

One of the plants where children worked, SMART Alabama LLC in rural Luverne, Alabama, is a direct Hyundai subsidiary. According to Hyundai’s financial statements from last year, the automaker controls a 72-per-cent stake in SMART. Chang wrote that Hyundai was “in the process of divesting its ownership interest in SMART” but it would ensure “that the economically important jobs in the Luverne, Alabama community are preserved.”...

“The use of underage labor at a supplier or any operation is unacceptable, and we are committed to making sure non-compliance never happens again,” Chang wrote in the letter. “This is a zero-tolerance issue.”