Kids as young as 14 were found working at a Tennessee factory that makes lawn mower parts

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 894 points – Kids as young as 14 were found working at a Tennessee factory that makes lawn mower parts
nbcnews.com

The company, Tuff Torq, was fined nearly $300,000 for hiring 10 children. It must also set aside $1.5 million to help the immigrant minors who were illegally employed.

Immigrant children as young as 14 were found working illegally amid dangerous heavy equipment at a Tennessee firm that makes parts for lawn mowers sold by John Deere and other companies, according to Labor Department officials.

The company, Tuff Torq, was fined nearly $300,000 for hiring 10 children. As part of a consent agreement with the federal government, the company is also required to set aside $1.5 million to help the children who were illegally employed. Ryan Pott, general counsel for Tuff Torq’s majority owner, the Japanese firm Yanmar, acknowledged the violations to NBC News.

130

notice no one is going to jail.

The company is being fined, so no single person is being held accountable monetarily either

Google tells me:

Tuff Torq has 513 employees, and the revenue per employee ratio is $311,891. Tuff Torq peak revenue was $160.0M in 2023.

They were fined $300,000. So less than one employees' worth of revenue.

Cost of doing business, as usual.

Fined $300K, but also have to give up $1.5M in profit for the 10 kids. $150,000 per kid, or, you know, 1/2 of the revenue they generated. ;)

Well I'm sure a company with ethics, like John Deere probably, will stop doing business with Tuff Torq now. Definitely.

No, they'll just re-negotiate their contract to get a better deal causing Tuff Torque to treat their remaining employees worse.

Or owner bankrupts tuff torq, gives himself a termination bonus, then makes a new LLC called Tough Tork

Then his grand child does the same thing 30 years later to Tough Torgue

Honestly, they probably will. John Deere is really shitty ethically speaking with their stance on right to repair but they have a very strict supplier code of conduct. I used to work for a place that was one of their suppliers and our contract with them was far more strict than with any of our other customers. It mostly included things focused on employee welfare at the suppliers site. I'm going to see if I can get a hold of it today but posting it would probably violate confidentiality and this is an easily doxable account so don't expect me to post it wholesale.

Also this place just got a bunch of bad press while being associated with Deere while Deere currently has enough bad press of their own. They're going to come down on them hard which almost certainly means just cutting them off because it isn't like a company as big as Deere is going to struggle to find eager suppliers.

They would actually just hire adults, who cost slightly more if they are desperate. They will continue production at 100%

Could you explain what exactly "revenue per employee ratio" means? My thought would be that this is the value the average employee creates for the company minus the cost of employment per year, is that correct?

It's just revenue divided by number of employees

Revenue is all the money the company makes, before any costs

Revenue per employee is that amount divided by the number of employee

The after costs amount would be profit per employee

You'd think since companies are people they'd be thrown in jail or something.

They would but companies usually are considered rich people so they get the same treatment.

Corporations are people until it comes to them committing serious felonies.

At that point they're "too big to fail"

Whoever signed off on hiring literal children should be held accountable. Actually holding these people to accountability is the only way this is getting solved

1 more...

"The Labor Department has prioritized child labor enforcement since last spring amid a 152% increase in children found to be illegally employed since 2018, according to department figures."

Mostly immigrants I'd bet

Also illegal immigrants

Of course they are. Why else would you oppose immigration, except to be able to exploit illegal immigrants?

By virtue of being here unlawfully, they have little recourse. That fact alone is essentially leverage for any “employer” to exploit them over.

It’s clearly not because they are a drain on the system, because that’s been disproven time and time again. Their economic contributions far outweigh whatever little social programs they’re able to obtain.

So it must be because they are a great pool of cheap, under-the-table, sub-minimum-wage, exploitable labor. Just like prisoners and prostitutes (except for the sans sub-minimum wage part. Plenty of illicit sex workers that are unpaid victims of trafficking, but if the John is paying less than $7.25 an hour, they should really know better)

Why else would you oppose immigration, except to be able to exploit illegal immigrants?

Bigotry for one. You should talk to my father, since you know I don't talk to him, he ran for town mayor on a campaign to get rid of Latinos by changing zoning laws forbidding multifamily residential units. He didn't win and I am glad I wasnt 18 since it would have been awkward voting against him.

By virtue of being here unlawfully, they have little recourse. That fact alone is essentially leverage for any “employer” to exploit them over.

Ah yes, keep your employees at least as culpable as yourself, and thus exploitable. These are mob tactics. Hey, maybe slapping these monsters with a RICO suit is the way to go here?

Mobsters didn’t have Citizens United.

If CU were around in the 1920s, we’d still be in prohibition.

Indeed, and this is what the vast majority of human trafficking actually is. But you may have noticed that very few conservatives are calling for the blood of these factory owners.

$300k is a joke. Every manager should be in prison and the factory should be nationalized. Keep the legit (adult) employees there, and transition the business to worker ownership.

Do that a few times and you’ll see some changes in how businesses behave.

Don't need to nationalize it. Turn it into a cooperative instead. Every worker owns shares within the company. Profits are shared.

That’s the “transition to worker ownership” part. IANAL but I think that the government taking it over might be a necessary intermediate step if you’re compelling transition to a co-op.

A cool law would be something like "first right to sale" where if a company gets sold or goes public the employees must be given the right to purchase as much % or as many shares at least one penny cheaper than the buyer or banks who are distributing the IPO.

People don't have a lot of extra money, so its just a first step to shifting the means of production to employees. But it's a good first step in my opinion.

Great suggestions. Worker ownership would fix a LOT of things in this country.

Wow!

300k is so cheap to commit child labor! What an "affordable fee" to pay children like $5/hr and put them in dangerous situations. Best of all, they don't know any better and you just lie to them!

Yay thank you America!!!

Sooo .... the solution to children workers is ..... communism?

Capitalism demands profits, which demand mistreatment, which results in this.

But keep banging your drum, guy. You’re the reason nothing changes.

☺️

Abolition of child labor is one of the traditional demands of the American communist movement. Children should be taught a broad base education and be given time to play and rest and parents shouldn’t feel financial pressure to make their child work

Nothing wrong with a bit of communism. You know unless you like your politics dog whistle simple, in which case i guess you do you.

That's capitalism. The business is given to its workers, not the state

3 more...

What a shit hole country

Oh but c'mon, it's a country where undiagnosed schizophrenics have the freedom to buy semi-automatic firearms, proudly rapist lying bankrupt fraudsters can become the president and guns are the leading cause of death for children!

What's not to like?

Listen, we can't all live in Finland, mate. This is just rubbing it in. And you over there with your tall treetops and loffy mountains.

Actually, there's not a single mountain in the whole country.

Norway wanted to give us one but it didn't work out in the end.

Also, compared to American Redwoods, our trees really aren't that tall.

So it's more like us over here with our thick, short forests and our potato fields.

Just referring to an old song. Cheers for the Finn-Facts, though! I think I remember reading about this mountain business somewhere.

Just wait until conservatism gets back in charge. K-6 can look forward to the coal mines.

I have been told they do yearn for them....

Tennessee: old enough to make assembly line lawn mower parts

Florida: not old enough for social media.

But old enough to have a rifle/shotgun. And not just in Tennessee:

From TN and got my first shotgun for my tenth birthday.

So did I, but we didn't have ammo in the house until I was an adult. Buying a youth-model gun and training kids to be safe with firearms early can be a responsible thing.

Nobody at the gun range is scarier than the adult that's never shot before who went and bought a pistol and a box of bullets. Last time I was at the range they were using freaking Airpods as their earpro.

Everyone is super impressed by your story, it just seems like you don't understand that your anecdote is meaningless in the face of actual statistical data.

Edit: your downvotes have convinced me to disregard everything we know about statistics in order to favor this one person's anecdotal experience. You guys are good.

So you think young people shouldn't be taught gun safety in a controlled environment before they're able to buy guns or ammo?

This is the dumbest, most dystopian American shit I've ever read. No, I don't think children should have access to firearms, period. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

You have the luxury of living in a world where young people won't be exposed to guns. There are hundreds of million of them here.

If you live on the shore of a lake, should you teach your kids to swim, or just let them figure it out when they fall off the dock when you aren't around?

Yeah because a child can wield a lake and kill several adult humans by simply moving their finger. Totally comparable.

This country is brain-broken.

Edit: Maybe if more ammosexuals downvote me, I'll change my mind. Keep trying guys!

Taking a kid to a gun range and teaching them how to safely handle a gun is different than providing them unrestricted access to firearms.

Your "abstinence only" approach to guns isn't realistic. Guns exist and just telling kids they're bad and for grownups only doesn't work.

Kids need to be given the tools they need to stay safe. Look at all the kids who were told that same things about drinking, and sex. What happens when they get to college? They go crazy and end up pregnant with their car wrapped around a tree.

They do the same thing with guns. They are suddenly old enough to buy or rent them, and they do stupid shit.

Kids need to be given the tools they need to stay safe

Brain damaged country...

Okay. Say you lived here. Would you want your kids to know firearm safety? Or would you prefer they learn by playing with their friend's Dad's gun he leaves in a drawer?

I'm not gonna try and convince you or anything. I'm pretty spotty on it now that I have kids, but also I live in a city now, so there's not much of a point.

But I grew up where we got out of school for the first day of deer season. I would go hunting and fishing with every member of my family. Deer, quail, rabbit, turkey, duck, you name it. We'd pluck and skin em, process the meat and eat it for as long as we could. Less people hunt now and deer pops have been getting out of control. Not to mention the natural predators we have here, like cougars, coyotes, bears, snakes, goddamn hogs.

I believe guns are extremely necessary tools in rural America. But firearm safety was taught as hard as the gospel. That shit was drilled into us from as soon as we could understand words, for years before we could hold them. Turning 11 and going through hunter's safety and then first buck was a rite of passage

I'm gonna compare it to sex ed here. If people are gonna have it, you may as well teach them everything possible about doing it safely.

i mean, educating people on how to safely handle guns is one of the best ways to prevent people from doing stupid shit with them.

I'm sure Tennessee law makers will be sure to rectify this soon - they'll go ahead and loosen child labor laws more and more so their benefactors remain happy.

They can't attend school as often if they work, so an additional benefit in some circles.

Companies found using child labor should have their business license revoked and forced to liquidate.

And the CEO / Board members jailed or sent to a forced labour camp. Either way I would be happy

Just thinking about some shitstain CEOs having to work an actual job instead of tea parties and coke and hookers, makes my day so much brighter. Thank you.

No prob, in these dark days we need some joy, even if it's not from reality

“Pott, the general counsel for Tuff Torq’s majority owner, said the child workers were temporary and were not hired directly by Tuff Torq. He said they used fake names and false credentials to obtain jobs through a temporary staffing agency, and said Tuff Torq is ‘transitioning’ away from doing business with the staffing company.” They’re just passing the blame now that they got caught; otherwise, I’m sure they’d continue to turn a blind eye.

Yeah, they didn't stop and go... "The staffing agency says you're 18, I don't buy it. Where's your ID?"

well, at least none of those kids were being endangered by hormones!1!!11!

Imagine how insanely productive kids must be at repetitive tasks. And it's not like they have been exposed to the labour struggles, they'll have to figure it out all of that on their own.

Just think of all the valuable work experience these children are missing out on due to the nanny state! /s (the actual thought of rightwing ghouls).

The reason businesses and right wingers are so pro border enforcement is so they can abuse children like this. Threaten deportation and you don't have to follow labor laws.

Yup, nothing new. Working in factories at 14 1/2 when I was a child back in the 80's.

Not a damn thing new at all.

Let's see what happens when Reps close the border.. LMAO..

yet we have freedom and China doesn't /s

So I was a teenager in the early 2000s and many, many of my teenage classmates including myself had jobs. Some full time some part time.

Personally I worked at a paper mill from the age of 15 until I moved out of state.

But the minimum age was 14 to be able to work at that time.

I've just been seeing a lot of posts like this indicating young teenage children working and I don't see why this is all of the sudden an issue?

Do you mean you don't think it's a problem at all? Or you're angry that it's only just become an issue?

Employing illegal underage migrant workers is definitely a problem and needs to be addressed.

And I'm not angry not sure why you interpreted my comment in that capacity.

I simply posed a question why employing teenagers has suddenly become an issue. Apparently people found my question offensive and assumed a position that I don't hold.

My question wasn't directly commenting on the article cited in this post but was in general since I have seen multiple posts indicating that more companies are employing more teenage workers not necessarily illegal migrant workers.

My question is why is this suddenly a problem since employing teenagers has been something that has been going on in this country since its conception.

Different states have different laws but generally there are strict limitations on the types of jobs that a person under 18 is allowed to work. It used to be really popular for manufacturing companies to hire kids because they are small and can fit into tight spaces in the heavy equipment. Plus they were considered expendable.

There are also tight regulations on the hours they can work. Because those children are supposed to be attending school. In all of the cases I've seen recently the kids are illegal immigrants who are not in school at all. They're just working full time jobs with extremely dangerous machinery in violation of pretty much every regulation around child employment. So yes it's a problem.

I see. Then I agree. That is something that should not be happening. Exploiting children of migrant families is despicable.

You ever seen a kid get killed in heavy machinery? Have you ever seen a kid get permanently maimed on heavy machinery? That shit changes you. As a society we're all supposed to learn from those horrors but instead we stay real myopic and say I've never been hurt, I've never seen anything bad happen and ignore that all regulations were written in blood and lifelong trauma. Then there's the myriad situations where migrant children can be abused because they're low risk victims.

Right! This seems to be the prevailing missing puzzle piece to most of these people's thought process. They're skipping over the fact that CHILDREN are WORKING instead of, oh I don't fucking know, BEING CHILDREN?

So your logic is, "some kids die and get hurt working, so no kids should work"?

Precisely. They should have a childhood.

Right now 14 year olds just look at phones and go on social media which is a direct harm. Working would be more healthy for their body and their mind.

we're exploited enough as is and corporate greed is only getting worse, there's absolutely zero need to put children in a position to be exploited.

If they dont want to be "exploited" then they shouldnt apply for the job.

What the fuck? You think employees should be exploited because they need money to survive? Force them to work 80-hour weeks for minimum wage? Scream racist epithets at them if they aren't productive enough? How about beat them with a metal rod if they step out of line?

I disagree with the "exploited" phrasing. And if someone is willing to work 80 hrs per week then they can make money doing other things.

I actually think they should be beaten with a wood broom handle. Quicker swings.

Ah, you're one of those "just get another job" people who think jobs grow on trees.

Yes, getting caught in a large factory machine and being ground up and spat out into a puddle of mush would be much more healthy for their body and their mind.

Times change. I was running a forklift at 14 and working construction at 16. Society has decided that it isn't the way it wants things to happen anymore.

I imagine you are reading more stories because the economic downturn has pushed more families to do this.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that teenagers have always been working this isn't a new phenomenon that has just now started to happen regardless of how many teenagers are working even if that number has increased.

I've seen some legislation in recent years where they dropped the minimum wage to work down which I don't agree with but other than that where's the problem here that's what I'm asking?

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that teenagers have always been working this isn’t a new phenomeno

"People have always kept slaves, so there's nothing wrong with slavery." The sentiment of people like you a couple of hundred years ago.

Ever heard of a false equivalency? Because your above statement is a text book definition.

Also go fuck yourself for inferring that I somehow support slavery and for comparing legally employing teenagers and compensating them for their labor to buying, selling and torturing human beings and making them work for free.

(I understand that the company in the post was illegally employing underage migrants. I'm making a general statement concerning the entire teenage work force in American.)

There's nothing wrong with employing teens within a set of standards and reason.

have always been working this isn’t a new phenomenon that has just now started to happen regardless of how many teenagers are working even if that number has increased.

Moral ought from an is

And you had all the protections afforded a citizen. You could speak up and not worry about deportation. If they didn't pay you, you had recourse. These people don't. So don't kid yourself when you think you've worked similar conditions.

Deportation the hell are you talking about?

If the company is hiring illegal underage immigrants they themselves are breaking the law.

Moreover even though they might be illegal underage immigrants they still have protections under us law child labor laws don't change due to your status as an individual in the United States.

Yeah, that's kinda why the company is getting fined. For the crimes.

Companies like this operate like an umbrella and hide people from the protections our laws offer them, frequently holding leverage over workers in ways that cross international boundaries.

People aren't getting work visas to do grunt work in manufacturing or meat slaughter houses. This is America. No one needs a temp service to hire teenagers if you're doing things legally in those industries.

There's a reason this company used a hiring service, you see it in every industry that needs hard labor in this country. Its the elephant in the room. Wake up.

And the fine they got was less than the revenue generated by one of those children.