What Next: The New Era of Child Labor

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2022

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Reuters reporter Micah Rosenberg recently uncovered this letter.
0:11.6	It was a little strange.
0:13.5	It came from an automobile plant in Alabama.
0:15.6	And it was addressed to US consular officials in Mexico.
0:20.0	What did the letter say?
0:21.0	Well, the letter said that they were very desperate for workers.
0:28.8	They said that there had been a shortage of workers in Alabama because of COVID and other
0:36.0	related economic disruptions.
0:38.3	Yeah, it sounds familiar.
0:39.8	I feel like a lot of industries are facing a worker shortage right now.
0:43.0	Exactly.
0:44.0	And they said specifically that they were under huge pressure from Hyundai to keep up manufacturing
0:50.8	and that there was basically a sort of zero tolerance for slowdowns on the production
0:55.5	line.
0:56.5	And so, you know, in their own words, they said that they weren't able to find workers locally.
1:02.1	And so because of that, they needed to recruit these workers from Mexico.
1:07.3	This letter caught Micah's attention because she'd been investigating real problems at this
1:11.7	Alabama plant, which specializes in metal stamping.
1:15.2	She had documented instances where Mexican engineers had been hired for jobs under false
1:19.6	pre-tenses, should found numerous OSHA violations, and there was something else.
1:37.2	Micah had learned this plant was hiring underaged workers.
1:42.2	Some as young as 12 or 13.
	...

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