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.
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?
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
I think it’s 160M / 500+ employees.
It’s just revenue divided by number of employees
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
Cost of doing business
Saw the headline, said, “I bet they’re immigrant children.”
Surprise, surprise.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173697113/immigrant-child-labor-crisis
Yup. Republicans claim they want to close the border, but have no problem exploiting the labor supply.
“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.
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to them, turning a business into a co-op is top-tier violence.
Oh sure the rich can profit off child labor but talking about violence is off the table. Just sit and take it. Maybe peacefully protest somewhere that’s not too disruptive.
Sooo … the solution to children workers is … communism?
I don’t think you know what the words “nationalize” or “communism” mean.
Seize the means of production! Power to the people!
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
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!!!
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?
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.
5 years too late. You could have shot that at 5 years old with minimal bruising.
It was a .410 so you’re not wrong
John Deere really continuing to speedrun the Most Hated Company in America challenge I see
Well, they are 2 positions removed here… Staffing company illegally supplied the kids to a 3rd party supplier of John Deere.
It would be like, I dunno, someone hiring illegal employees for a glass company selling bottles to Coca Cola.
It’s still their responsibility to audit their suppliers. At the very least to have them pledge to not use child labour with contract penalties. I have a friend who travels at random to China to do drop-in unannounced checks for apparel companies to make sure they’re meeting labour standards and actually doing the work in-house and not sub-subcontracing.
It’s super common for low bidders to have nice show factories that give a good tour, but then just pawn the work off elsewhere when companies don’t actively check or care. I can’t imagine Deere gave a shit to allow this from their supplier, especially with no statement from them even saying they were hoodwinked or anything.
There are things called down chain audits, like how Nestle knows all about the forced child labour that goes on in their supply chains and still refuses to part with said companies because it will make chocolate more expensive
Well, cocoa is now more expensive than copper…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cocoa-more-expensive-copper-tops-111128755.html
Next Wonka reboot will feature meth-heads raiding the abandoned factory after Charlie loses it because the UN put sanctions on him for human rights violations.
Nah not believable. Charlie is white so the UN ain’t going to touch him.
How convenient for them.
Place I was at just had multiple people working on the same name. X was the official employee and X officially works 80 hours a week. X is two people one of which doesn’t have papers.
That doesn’t sound tax effective for the person with papers
but children crave the mines
Are you from Tennessee? 'Cause you’re the only ten-year-old I see working on this assembly line.
Law breaking charizzma
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
talk about freedom and democracy 🦅
Liber-tea! Ahahahahahahaha
“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!
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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.
