Hyundai’s US Auto Plants Are Rife With Labor Abuses
The raids at a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia earlier this month illustrate the impunity of Donald Trump’s brutal immigration crackdown. They also shine a spotlight on Hyundai’s labor practices, including exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers.
A worker assembles a vehicle on the production floor of the Ellabell Hyundai Metaplant electric vehicle manufacturing facility in June. (Elijah Nouvelage / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Four hundred seventy-five workers were arrested at a joint Hyundai and LG Energy Solutions electric-vehicle battery plant under construction in Ellabell, Georgia, on September 4. It was the largest immigration raid at a single location in US history.
The detained workers, most of whom were employed by subcontractors, were shackled with chains around their hands, ankles, and waists in a video released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. LG said forty-seven of its employees were also detained.
The workers were building a sprawling $7.6 billion taxpayer-subsidized manufacturing facility, touted as the largest economic development project in Georgia’s history.
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