The New Era of Child Labor
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2022
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With an ongoing labor shortage, companies turn to third-party labor brokers to fill jobs. But with little oversight and a surge of immigrants, the line between “ recruiter” and “ trafficker” gets blurred as vulnerable children are sent to work in dangerous conditions.
Guest: Mica Rosenberg, national immigration reporter for Reuters.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Bring the bar home with you this holiday season with the new Tails cocktails, an exclusive |
| 0:06.0 | range of ready-to-serve cocktails, with all the flavor and complexity of handmade cocktails. |
| 0:11.0 | Yet none of the work! Crafted with the highest quality top shelf spirits. |
| 0:15.2 | Picardy Rum 42 Below Vodka Bombay Sapphire Gin and Dua's blended Scotch Whiskey. |
| 0:20.9 | Tails cocktails offers bar quality cocktails, simply served. Just add ice, shake, shake, |
| 0:26.6 | pour, and enjoy your Tails cocktail. |
| 0:37.6 | Reuters reporter Michael Rosenberg recently uncovered this letter. It was a little strange. |
| 0:43.4 | It came from an automobile plant in Alabama. And it was addressed to U.S. |
| 0:47.6 | consular officials in Mexico. What did the letter say? Well, the letter said that they |
| 0:53.7 | were very desperate for workers. They said that there had been a shortage of workers in Alabama |
| 1:03.3 | because of COVID and other related economic disruptions. Yeah, it sounds familiar. I feel like a |
| 1:10.0 | lot of industries are facing a worker shortage right now. Exactly. And they said specifically that |
| 1:15.4 | they were under huge pressure from Hyundai to keep up manufacturing and that there was basically |
| 1:22.0 | a sort of zero tolerance for slowdowns on the production line. And so, you know, in their own |
| 1:28.2 | words, they said that they weren't able to find workers locally. And so because of that, they needed |
| 1:33.4 | to recruit these workers from Mexico. This letter caught Mike's attention because she'd been |
| 1:39.5 | investigating real problems at this Alabama plant, which specializes in metal stamping. |
| 1:45.1 | She'd documented instances where Mexican engineers had been hired for jobs under false pretenses. |
| 1:50.8 | She'd found numerous OSHA violations. You know, tens of thousands of dollars of |
| 1:55.1 | ocean finds over the years at this particular plant is recently as this year, you know, including |
| 2:02.1 | crushing amputation hazards at the factory. And there was something else. |
| 2:07.2 | Micah had learned this plant was hiring underaged workers. Some as young as 12 or 13. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

