Alabama Fines Hyundai, Kia Parts Manufacturers Over ‘Oppressive Child Labor’

[Progeny2021]

A 'Staffing Agency' (?) provided the labor. The diversity-inclusion-equity 'bottom feeders' of the labor market.


"Automotive supplier SL Alabama, which produces headlights and mirrors for Hyundai, and JK USA, a temporary employment agency providing workers to car part manufacturers, were fined $17,800 each for multiple violations of the Child Labor Law. Such violations included employing seven children under the age of 16, two violations for failing to obtain proper child labor permits, and five violations for failing to provide identification documents."



“This practice of providing and employing underage and undocumented workers is appalling,” Alabama Department of Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington said. “Employee safety, especially the safety of children, is a top priority.”

http://www.stationgossip.com/2022/10/alabama-fines-hyundai-kia-parts.html

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[dtech]

Good to hear it - I own a Hyundai and I know other site users do as well, but the Hyundai is my 1st and last, besides Hyundai misstating mpg ratings (deliberate and fined $100m) their Theta II engines are failure prone, but I also looked into the history of the company and it's rife with corruption and shady dealings - starting with their leadership.

 

[oldnslow]

I dealt with Hyundai in the electronics industry many years ago. Its a very large company, into many areas. We tried using their memory chips (SRAMs) and they were very failure prone. Their applicatiion engineer gave us some very obvious BS answers as to why we were seeing these failures. I have been avoiding that company ever since.

 

[Cmar]

Good to hear it - I own a Hyundai and I know other site users do as well, but the Hyundai is my 1st and last, besides Hyundai misstating mpg ratings (deliberate and fined $100m) their Theta II engines are failure prone, but I also looked into the history of the company and it's rife with corruption and shady dealings - starting with their leadership.

I must admit we own a couple in this family, my wife has a diesel Santa Fe AWD and it is the nicest, most economical SUV we've ever owned. We also have a Hyundai Tuscon, Kia Sportage pair, both the older AWD models with the 2.7 V6 owned by my two sons, and all three have been extremely reliable units. The V6 could be a little more economical, that's my only real gripe. The Tuscon did need a starter motor a few months ago and now needs a strut top bush / bearing, but at 250,000 Km I think that can be forgiven. At 150,000 Km all the Kia has needed was a stop lamp switch.
The Theta engine hasn't been an issue here, but I believe that is because the RHD models we get are all built in Korea, the Alabama built engines to speed up production, used compressed air to clean machining swarf out of the blocks - which didn't, it seemed, whereas the Korean engine plant still used a hot water wash.

 

[D Fresh]

Not even sure why Hyundai and Kia are mentioned in the article. Or the parts supplier. As the article states the temp agency is at fault here.

We use day laborer temp agencies at my work. We call them rent a drunks, that ought to tell you the quality of individual we get. We use them to sweep floors, bag cheeses and yogurts, or maybe run stops for an injured driver.

The temp agency is responsible for everything related to their employment including workers comp if they injure themselves.

This really has nothing to do at all with Hyundai or Kia. They just paid for some headlights. Or even the parts supplier, they just needed people to work and couldn't find any, like most companies now days.

This is totally on the temp agency.

 

[LostMy65]

I love Alabama.

 

[Cmar]

I love Alabama.

Shouldn't that be "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynrd Skynrd, even though they were a Florida band.

 

[dtech]

I must admit we own a couple in this family, my wife has a diesel Santa Fe AWD and it is the nicest, most economical SUV we've ever owned. We also have a Hyundai Tuscon, Kia Sportage pair, both the older AWD models with the 2.7 V6 owned by my two sons, and all three have been extremely reliable units. The V6 could be a little more economical, that's my only real gripe. The Tuscon did need a starter motor a few months ago and now needs a strut top bush / bearing, but at 250,000 Km I think that can be forgiven. At 150,000 Km all the Kia has needed was a stop lamp switch.
The Theta engine hasn't been an issue here, but I believe that is because the RHD models we get are all built in Korea, the Alabama built engines to speed up production, used compressed air to clean machining swarf out of the blocks - which didn't, it seemed, whereas the Korean engine plant still used a hot water wash.

plenty of news stories on the theta II engine debacle in the US, link to 2 below. The korean engineer, so called whistler blower was awarded $24 m by a US agency for exposing Hyundai's lies and ill conceived attempted coverup, the settlement in the US which provides a life time engine replacement is costing Hyundai billions - they reserved $2.9B some yrs back as Theta II engines produced from 2011 onwards suffer from bearing seizures, Hyundai never revealed the true cause and initially told the NHTSA that is was due to improper cleaning. The 1st recall involved a sonic probe inserted into the dipstick slot to detect noisy bearings, then a later recall was to use the knock detector to pick up failing bearings and place the engine into limp mode then off to the dealer for a new engine, hasn't yet happened to mine but literally has to hundreds of thousands of engines. What was amazing that Hyundai continued to sell vehicles with Theta II until 2019 - they did make some improvements to reduce the failures but it's not a well designed engine. I also get a annual gas reimbursement based on the difference between their falsified epa mpg tests and the current cost of gas, so based on the Theta II cover up and the mpg falsification it's not a company I will buy from again. It is estimated around 15% of Theta II engines experience bearing failure, although Hyundai chooses not to release the numbers. There was another class action case regards engine fires - which happens to Hyundai/KIA more than any other make.

https://www.torquenews.com/108/kia-hyundai-hit-210m-nhtsa-theta-ii-engine-recall-penalties
https://www.safetyresearch.net/hyun...m-that-broke-the-nhtsa-civil-penalty-barrier/

 

[Muddy Fenders]

The world is getting soft.

I was working on the family farm at 8

 

[Progeny2021]

plenty of news stories on the theta II engine debacle in the US, link to 2 below.

The korean engineer, so called whistler blower was awarded $24 m by a US agency for exposing Hyundai's lies and ill conceived attempted coverup, the settlement in the US which provides a life time engine replacement is costing Hyundai billions - they reserved $2.9B some yrs back as Theta II engines produced from 2011 onwards suffer from bearing seizures, Hyundai never revealed the true cause and initially told the NHTSA that is was due to improper cleaning.

The 1st recall involved a sonic probe inserted into the dipstick slot to detect noisy bearings, then a later recall was to use the knock detector to pick up failing bearings and place the engine into limp mode then off to the dealer for a new engine, hasn't yet happened to mine but literally has to hundreds of thousands of engines. What was amazing that Hyundai continued to sell vehicles with Theta II until 2019 - they did make some improvements to reduce the failures but it's not a well designed engine.

I also get a annual gas reimbursement based on the difference between their falsified epa mpg tests and the current cost of gas, so based on the Theta II cover up and the mpg falsification it's not a company I will buy from again.

It is estimated around 15% of Theta II engines experience bearing failure, although Hyundai chooses not to release the numbers. There was another class action case regards engine fires - which happens to Hyundai/KIA more than any other make.

https://www.torquenews.com/108/kia-hyundai-hit-210m-nhtsa-theta-ii-engine-recall-penalties
https://www.safetyresearch.net/hyun...m-that-broke-the-nhtsa-civil-penalty-barrier/

The writing around here is often awful. Thinking a reported 5% failure rate triggers (or is supposed to_) a federal recall here in the U.S. No telling what's actually happening as the NTSB, and its predecessor the CAB were/are little more than political pawns....

 

[dtech]

The writing around here is often awful. Thinking a reported 5% failure rate triggers (or is supposed to_) a federal recall here in the U.S. No telling what's actually happening as the NTSB, and its predecessor the CAB were/are little more than political pawns....

Perhaps but imo Hyundai got what they deserved , if for nothing else as making such an inept amateurish attempt to deceive and hide the truth. The whole recall was controversial , prompted by a number of owners whose engines seized at highway speeds and Hyundai blamed them for bad maintenance and denied warranty claim. The ntsa will react to high speed stalls and vehicle fires quickly, but the Hyundai issue did occur not too long after the gm ignition lock cylinder issue which caused a few dozens deaths and multiple accidents, gm escaped most liability under chapter 11 protection,but the nhtsa was widely criticized for not recognizing the ignition cylinder as the common cause in many accidents.

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