State, feds investigate reports of child labor in west Michigan
A New York Times investigation detailing migrant child labor in west Michigan facilities spurred state and federal investigations Monday.
The Times found that automotive suppliers and a food contractor in the Grand Rapids area are illegally employing migrant children in jobs that can include dangerous conditions and long hours, producing goods used by Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., and General Mills Inc.
The west Michigan cases are part of a national pattern of children who migrate to the United States and find themselves working exhausting jobs, often trapped in debt for smuggling fees and living expenses to people serving as their sponsors.
The system is enabled by "a chain of willful ignorance," the Times reported, including companies that fail to properly screen employees, schools that don't report labor violations, and little follow-up from federal agencies responsible for ensuring their safety.
The Biden administration said Monday it would create an interagency task force between the Department of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services to crack down on companies exploiting migrant child workers. They plan to scrutinize factories and suppliers that may use child labor, the companies that use their products, and staffing agencies that ferry children into their workforce.
The Department of Labor also said it had launched an investigation into Hearthside Food Solutions, a food processing company with locations in Grand Rapids that produce Chewy and Nature Valley Granola bars and package Lucky Charms and Cheetos, and which was found to employ migrant children.
"I'm mad as hell," U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, a freshman Democrat representing Grand Rapids in Congress, told The Detroit News on Monday. She called upon the agencies to create such a task force earlier that day on the House floor.
"If the companies themselves are not going to voluntarily follow the law, we need to make sure the agencies responsible for both enforcing those laws and keeping these kids protected are doing everything that they possibly can," she told The News.
"This is not a Charles Dickens or an Upton Sinclair novel here. This is every day in America, and it should shock the conscience. I know it did mine."
The Labor Department is also calling upon Congress to increase funding for the agency's enforcement activities, which it said has lost 12% of its staff between 2010 and 2019 due to underfunding. Congress should also increase the maximum civil penalty for child labor law violations, the agency said, because the existing fee of $15,138 is "not high enough to be a deterrent for major profitable companies."
There has been a 69% increase in children illegally working at U.S. companies since 2018, the Labor Department said. The agency said it has 600 child labor investigations underway and that it found 835 companies in the last fiscal year that violated labor laws employing more than 3,800 kids.
Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity has also opened an investigation into Hearthside and the auto suppliers that were unnamed in the Times report.
"The Department takes the allegations raised in the report seriously," said Sean Egan, deputy director of labor at LEO. "We are working closely with appropriate state and federal partners and have launched an investigation to ensure these Michigan organizations are in compliance with state laws and that children are protected."
Pattern of exploitation
The Times report published online Saturday detailed how unaccompanied migrant children, many fleeing poverty in Central America, are working dangerous jobs in the United States, in violation of federal and state child labor laws.
The report names several children working in such jobs, and is based on interviews with more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states — including some in Michigan. The Times also cited court and inspection records, as well as interviews with lawyers, social workers, educators and law enforcement officials.
The report hones in on several examples in west Michigan, including telling the story of one Guatemalan migrant, Carolina Yuc, 15, who works at a Hearthside plant in Grand Rapids packaging Cheerios on the night shift.
Hearthside CEO Darlene Nicosia responded to the report in a letter Saturday.
“We are appalled by today’s New York Times article alleging that the industry is employing underage individuals in unsafe conditions, and further suggesting some of these issues may be taking place at one of our locations,” she wrote. “Our hearts break for the young people whose stories are documented in the article.”
She also announced a series of actions including an independent review of Hearthside’s “employment practices, third-party employee engagements, plant safety protocols, and our standards of business conduct.”
The investigation also found instances of children making auto parts for suppliers of GM and Ford.
Ford told The Detroit News it is investigating the claims, and said in a statement that it “prohibits the use of child labor in any form and requires our suppliers to enforce similar policies.”
General Motors said the allegations are "deeply troubling, and we have been moving swiftly to investigate and address the issues with the two companies." The company added that it has "a zero-tolerance policy" for child labor in its supply chain and expects suppliers to verify the age of workers.
"When we become aware of violations or alleged violations of our Supplier Code of Conduct, we respond appropriately, up to and including the termination of business relationships," GM said.
The children are part of a rapid increase in unaccompanied minors sent to the United States without their parents, who are legally put into HHS custody until they can be reunited with a family member or responsible adult who can serve as their "sponsor" and protect them from exploitation.
The number of unaccompanied children crossing the border has increased in recent years. Nearly 130,000 children entered the system in 2022, breaking the record of 122,000 minors in 2021. Another surge in arrivals is expected to come this summer.
Minors who enter the United States without their parents or other guardians often are released to the care of sponsors. They are coming to the United States to escape poverty in their home countries, and many must work to send money home to their families and to pay off debts incurred from their migration. Case workers interviewed by the Times estimated that some two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children end up working full time.
"One of the bigger pieces is that there's just no support for them," said Ana Raquel Devereaux, an attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. When children are released, there aren't social services follow ups or financial support, compared to in the foster system where guardians receive a stipend to support the children and some children receive a daily stipend.
"When they're released to a sponsor, none of that exists. So just that pressure because they're not supported is one of the driving factors," she said. "If there's no support for the children, they're going to keep seeking out ways to provide for the needs that they have."
The report also suggests issues with corporations’ reliance on third-party staffing agencies, which Hearthside, for example, said it uses in its hiring process. Hearthside is one of the biggest contract manufacturers in the U.S. and makes and packages food for major companies like General Mills.
The Detroit News reached out to General Mills, the Minneapolis-based food conglomerate, for comment but did not immediately hear back. The company told the New York Times that it recognized "the seriousness of this situation" and was reviewing the outlet's findings.
The story cites as an example the experience of Kevin Tomas, who at age 13 sought work through a Grand Rapids-based staffing agency, Forge Industrial Staffing. Tomas told the Times that, through Forge, he first was sent to work at a local manufacturer that makes parts for Ford and GM, and later was sent to work at Hearthside.
Forge Industrial Staffing said in a statement that it "takes these allegations extremely seriously and has been horrified at reports of the scope and scale of exploitive child labor across the United States."
It said it would not knowingly place a minor with an employer and that has been unable to verify claims in the report, as all of its workers have provided identity documents to prove they are at least 18 years old.
"We proactively reached out to the Michigan Department of Labor for further guidance and will fully cooperate with any investigation into these allegations," the staffing agency said.
The Times also explains that some areas have high concentrations of migrant children who are being released from federal custody to the supervision of people who are not their parents or guardians, suggesting they will be expected to work. In northwest Grand Rapids, the outlet reported, 93% of children have been released to adults who are not their parents.
Underscoring the dangers of the jobs migrant children are doing, the Times found a dozen cases of young migrant workers killed since 2017. Others have suffered severe injuries on work sites, including amputations.
The New York Times report follows an investigation by Reuters into the use of child labor at plants in Alabama connected to South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co.
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Hyundai told its shareholders it would be divesting its controlling stake in an Alabama auto parts plant where the news outlet last year found that children as young as 12 were working.
The Reuters investigation prompted Hyundai to launch audits at 29 of its direct suppliers in Alabama to determine if they were in compliance with child labor laws, as well as state and federal investigations into as many as 10 Hyundai suppliers in Alabama. The automaker also is implementing new measures such as a training program for its suppliers conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Labor.
The outlet's reporting revealed that several suppliers to Hyundai's Montgomery, Alabama, plant used underage migrant workers to make vehicle parts. The assembly plant makes products including the Hyundai Elantra and Santa Fe.
One of the plants where Reuters documented underage migrant labor was a direct Hyundai subsidiary called SMART Alabama LLC, which makes chassis parts. That is the operation where Hyundai is divesting its ownership stake.
Reuters reported that many of the underage workers in the auto parts plants were recruited by third-party staffing agencies. Hyundai's chief executive has since informed shareholders that the company is "discouraging" suppliers from relying on those agencies going forward, Reuters reported.
That investigation also prompted a response from federal lawmakers. On Feb. 10, 33 members of Congress wrote to the U.S. labor secretary urging further action "to eliminate child labor from the U.S. auto supply chain."
Several members of Michigan's congressional delegation signed the letter, including Scholten and fellow Democrats Elissa Slotkin, Haley Stevens and Rashida Tlaib.
rbeggin@detroitnews.com
jgrzelewski@detroitnews.com